Rejuvenate Day 2 - Poured From Bottle To Bottle by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Job 29:18

Job recounted all the riches, blessings, and honor surrounding his life and declared that he was so satisfied he would die peacefully in his nest, having achieved everything that could be achieved. No one can afford to be satisfied with where they are, because wherever a person stands, there are higher, greater, and deeper places still ahead.

Deuteronomy 32:11

Isaiah 40:31

Those who wait upon the Lord shall mount up with wings as eagles. God does not liken His people to vultures, which are greedy, selfish birds that fight over rotten flesh and cannot finish a single carcass without fighting off other vultures. The eagle, by contrast, kills its food fresh every day; it does not survive on yesterday's provision, and neither can anyone survive on yesterday's anointing. What was true yesterday is not enough for today.

The Nature and Habits of the Eagle

The eagle never builds her nest on low ground or mates on the ground; she mates in the air, away from interference and the prying eyes of strangers, showing how sacred that act is meant to be. Men and women who give themselves away carelessly act contrary to the nature God has placed within His people; that nature must be asked for again where it has been wounded.

The eagle's eye is both telescopic and microscopic, allowing her to spot prey from great distances and bring it into clear focus. She can fly at speeds beyond two hundred kilometers per hour and lift weights many times her own. She does not strain to fly; she positions herself in the direction of the wind and glides, just as believers are meant to glide in the flow of the Spirit rather than wear themselves out flapping against it.

The eagle mates for life. If her partner dies, she will not seek another; this is the power of covenant. The female eagle tests a suitor by flying as high as she can tolerate, folding her wings, and falling, to see which male will pursue her all the way down and catch her before she hits the ground; that one becomes her husband.

The eagle builds her nest on the highest available point, away from predators and prying eyes, using twigs, branches, and mud, with the rough edges turned outward and the smooth edges inward. Because an eagle does not waste any part of its prey, even lining its nest with the skins of the animals it has killed, every twig and every piece of fur in that nest is a testimony of where the mother has been. In the same way, a child's surroundings are filled with the history and battles of the parent; the responsibility lies in scrutinizing that history honestly and showing the child where the holes are, so they do not fall into the same places.

Equipping the Next Generation

Training a child, in the biblical sense, means equipping them for the future, not merely disciplining them physically. Many young people are not equipped to deal with the realities ahead of them; this is part of why some who are not equipped fall into despair. Different children require different approaches; what corrects one will not correct another, and the work of a parent is to study each child rather than apply one method to all.

The Eagle Pushes Her Young Out

When the eaglets have been fed long enough, it becomes time for them to leave the nest. The father eagle flies ahead, creating a wind draft for the young to ride; this is what the Holy Spirit does for believers who position themselves in His draft. But while the young are away, the mother eagle tears the nest apart, turning the rough edges inward and the smooth edges outward, so that it is no longer comfortable when they return. This is the picture of God disturbing a place of comfort that has become a place of stagnancy. A place that has become too safe, too easy, and too familiar is no longer a place to be growing.

A personal testimony followed of marriage to a husband who funded every ministry need at first, then one day told her to go to the God who called her to fund it instead. What felt like abandonment became the turning point where faith in God replaced dependence on a husband's provision; in time, the same husband returned to ask whether the ministry still needed his contribution toward its program.

The eagle eventually pushes her young off the cliff edge entirely. Some discover their wings; others, who refuse to make the effort, fall and do not survive, because they were looking to be fed indefinitely. Adult children sheltered indefinitely in a parent's house, even into their thirties and forties, will not learn to fly. Compassion sometimes draws the mother eagle to catch a falling chick, but she can only catch one at a time; the rest must learn to fly or fall.

Poured From Bottle to Bottle

Jeremiah 48:11-12

Moab had been at ease from its youth, settled on its lees, never emptied from vessel to vessel; therefore its taste remained in it and its scent had not changed. Wine that has not fermented must be poured repeatedly from bottle to bottle to remove its sediment and arrive at purity. Those who refuse to move, who remain at ease, retain the taste of their bitterness, complacency, anger, unforgiveness, and depression, because they have never been poured from bottle to bottle.

Zephaniah 1:12

God will search and punish those who are settled on their lees, stagnant in spirit. While this can sound harsh, every trouble and difficult season can also be understood as God turning a person from bottle to bottle, removing what is unnecessary and preparing them for what comes next.

A Life Poured Through Many Bottles

Born the third girl in a row to a father who openly despised having daughters, the question "what is the value of a female child" shaped an entire childhood. A mother was abused and shamed for giving birth to girls, even told that if her seventh child was also a girl she should not return home; eight children were eventually born, the seventh finally a boy.

Growing up under a father whose attention came only through achievement, academic success became an escape and a way to be seen, eventually leading into a career as an electrical engineer chosen partly to prove a point in a field her father, a mechanical engineer, valued. Books became another escape from an emotionally absent father, and the discipline of constant reading became, unknowingly, God preparing a future voice of authority and knowledge.

A distinctive voice that was mocked throughout childhood, even by classmates and within her own home, was the very voice God would later use to command attention before crowds of tens of thousands without a microphone. A mother's offhand comment that she was "the least pretty" of six daughters was internalized as being called ugly, shaping years of low self-worth that academics alone seemed able to compensate for.

Over time, of a family of ten, eight have died, including both parents and all five sisters, many through complications connected to addiction inherited across the family line. Sixteen children left behind by deceased siblings were taken in, in addition to her own seven, and the resulting financial and emotional pressure became yet another bottle of pouring and purifying. Ezekiel 18:2 and Isaiah 51:1 were referenced regarding generational patterns: what is happening in a family in the present often has roots in the lineage it comes from, and dealing honestly with that root is what pulls down the altars set up by previous generations.

A rehab ministry grew out of personal experience with addiction and family loss, beginning with stopping the consumption of strong drinks at age ten after years of being given alcohol by her father from early childhood. Her own brother eventually checked himself into the rehab she runs after years of addiction, and her own son also fell into addiction through the third generation of the same pattern in the family. In response, God told her she was more concerned about other people's children than her own son, prompting her to step back in faith.

Isaiah 54:13

God reminded her that He alone is the teacher of her children, and that He had tied a rope around them at the point of their dedication to Him; no matter how far they wander, they can only go as far as that rope allows before being drawn back. This released her from running after her wandering son in anguish and into a posture of waiting at the altar for him to return.

A Closing Charge

A call to surrender bitterness, anger, unforgiveness, and complacency fully to God so that perfect peace, not merely partial peace, can be possessed. A daily practice of intentionally bringing the heart back to God for searching and release was described, alongside a personal motto of refusing to let any obstacle remain in the way of God's purpose.

• God, we are making you bigger than where we are, bigger than what confronts us; we are magnifying you and lifting you up.
• Lord, don't let me settle on my lees; pour me into as many bottles as I need to remain fresh.
• Father, put each one of us into the next vessel; if we have lagged or missed bottles, bring us now into the bottle we should be in.
• Lord, sharpen every dullness away from us, sharpen every part that has rusted, so that we will begin to flow in the draft of the Holy Spirit.