Verse: Matthew 9:16-17
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Devotion
Today’s scripture gives us Jesus’ words to John the Baptist’s disciples. They want to know why they and the Pharisees fast, but his disciples don’t. Jesus first gives a story about a bridegroom to help them understand and then he gives them these words. I am sure that they understood that you can’t use new patches on old clothes or old wineskins to hold new wine. However, we might not know that they put new wine in new wineskins that are made from goat skins. When the wine ferments, it gave off a gas which expands the wineskins. Old wineskins would break but new wineskins would expand with the fermenting wine.
Jesus was trying to help them (and us) understand that he was bringing something totally new to them and that the current form of religion could not hold this new direction. He did not come to patch something old, but to bring something new. He brings salvation and makes all things new.
Sometimes what is old and stagnant cannot be renewed and reformed. Most of the disciples wanted someone to come and overthrow the Romans so that they could go back to their old way of life. Jesus came not to change the political situation but to change our hearts forever.
We also can become enamored with the past. We want to worship the same way we always have, maybe even with the same songs. We resist change because it is uncomfortable. But God is always trying to change us and grow us and push us outside our boundaries.
Does God have some new wine for you? Is he asking you to make a change, to accept something different, to do something for him that makes you uncomfortable? Now is the time to have him renew your heart, to make it more flexible, so that it will accept his newness for you. His mercies are new every morning. We need to leave behind the old sin patterns and beliefs and be ready and flexible for the new wine of his spirit to be poured into us. Our lives will be so much better if we do.
Author: Brad Dunn
Recent Comments