Entering the Season of Shavuot
Shavuot is more than a historical festival commemorating the giving of the Torah or celebrating the harvest. It is a divine encounter, a sacred moment where Heaven touches Earth. It’s a season when God pours out His Spirit and calls us into renewal. Just as He moved two thousand years ago, He is still moving today—healing, empowering, and awakening His Church through the Holy Spirit. But to receive this Spirit, we must let go of old mindsets and rigid religious patterns that confine God’s movement.
“No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins; both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” (Mark 2:22) Too often, we live like spiritual abstainers—bound by rules, traditions, and fear of the unfamiliar. Yet when the Holy Spirit comes, He disrupts our formulas, breathes life into what is dead, and brings transformation. This is not a loss of reason—it is surrendering control and allowing God to lead.
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses…” (Acts 1:8). Power flows through surrender. But we cannot receive if we are closed. We fear emotional expression, fear being misunderstood, fear losing composure. And so, we cage the Holy Spirit within our intellect. But remember what happened on the day of Pentecost—the disciples were filled with joy, speaking in tongues, laughing. Onlookers assumed they were drunk. Yet it was not intoxication of the flesh, but the fulfillment of God’s promise.
If you are not drinking of the Holy Spirit, you are not living in the fullness of God’s promises. You may know the Scriptures, live morally, and say all the right things—but without the Spirit, it is merely a form without life. “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6). We often shy away from tears, laughter, prophecy, tongues—yet these are natural fruits of life in the Spirit.
God offers us the “wine of joy.” It stands in contrast to the “cup of wrath,” and we must choose which we will drink from. Drinking this wine means renewal—it brings courage, freedom, and boldness. Like someone filled with wine, fear fades, and trust rises. Life shifts when we allow the Spirit to move; relationships heal, bodies are restored, doors open. This is the fruit of divine transformation.
Many believers struggle for years with the same sins, trapped in cycles of guilt and striving. They trace their failures through generations, all the way back to Abraham—or even the dinosaurs! Why? Because they have not embraced the finished work of Yeshua on the cross. They are not living in the identity of the new creation. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new is here.” (2 Corinthians 5:17). To drink of the Holy Spirit is to accept this completed work and to live out of it. These are the new wineskins that hold the new wine.
God did not create death. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” (1 Corinthians 15:26). He is not the author of disease or disaster. These are consequences of the fall and the dominion of the prince of this world. But God empowers His people to overcome—not to submit. Drinking deeply of the Spirit equips us to resist the enemy, discern truth, and live by the Spirit, not by the flesh.
“As it is written: What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived—the things God has prepared for those who love Him—these are the things God has revealed to us by His Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:9–10). The Holy Spirit brings revelation. Without Him, Christianity is reduced to moralism—a system without vitality. But with the Spirit, we have the mind of Messiah.
“We have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16). To be filled with the Holy Spirit is not emotionalism or sensationalism—it is spiritual fruit. “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him—the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord—and He will delight in the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:2–3). This is the outcome: righteousness, reverence, holy fear, and heavenly order.
Today, God is calling again: “Drink.” He longs to fill us with His Spirit—not for experience’s sake, but for empowerment and truth. Do not reject the spiritual. Do not cling to the old. Let the wineskins of your heart be renewed. Shavuot is not just a memory—it is a present reality. Prepare your heart. Let the Holy Spirit fill you. Only then will you step into the season of power, joy, and wonders prepared for those who love Him.
Pastor Oren Lev Ari