(Excerpt from Chapter "Living on my summit" from Leona's book-in-progress)
One problem of advancing years is
often dry skin because the natural lubricants of our body diminish.
Creams and lotions crowd the store shelves touting miraculous
results.
Psalm 92:10 is a prayer for “anointing
with fresh oil.” As Christians, we’ve hopefully had our
exhilarating, anointing times in the past, but fresh oil is still
abundantly available to us now, and more needed than ever. The Holy
Spirit is both the dispenser of that oil, and the oil itself.
Psalm 45:7 promotes the “oil of joy”
as our essential oil at every age. Joy is not the predominant emotion
that comes to mind when we think about older people. Rather, it seems
that depression, sadness over losses and limitations, weakness,
discouragement, and melancholy are more characteristic of aging.
When Jesus referred to “old
wineskins” in His teaching, He may not only have meant institutions
and traditions. Another layer of understanding might be applied to
people. The Holy Spirit’s power is prophesied as coming upon the
old and simultaneously on the young, irrespective of gender, status,
or position in life. (Joel 2:28-31) The Oil of the Holy Spirit can
soften hardened, dry, brittle, leathery, wineskin-people enabling
them to receive and contain the New Wine of the Spirit which is being
poured out these days. God puts His oil on the old wineskins to restore
them to youthful elasticity and usefulness. The Oil of the Spirit
will stretch our capacity to hold more of Jesus.
God does not limit himself to making
new and moving by His Spirit on the young. He can, and in these last
days spoken of by the prophets, may move in tremendous power of
renewal also upon those more advanced in age. It is never too late to
reach higher by opening ourselves to more of God’s fullness. For
both the young and those advanced in years there is available “new
every morning” refreshing and rejuvenation. There is great
potential for elderly people who are refired with zeal for
evangelistic witness to draw into God’s Kingdom their peer elderly
friends.
The gospel is not exclusively for the
young to receive or to share. A great impartation of power from
elderly Spirit-filled believers to other age groups in the Church is
God's norm in Scripture and history. Generations are meant to move in
power together similar to the way patriarchs passed on truth to their
families in Old Testament days.
We are called to go on “from glory
to glory.” God’s Kingdom has no retirement plan. I don't want to
be left by the wayside as His glory passes me by. God has planted me
where I am at this season of my life to be a pliable wineskin
container for His New Wine to be offered inter-generationally in my
orbit of life.
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