Key Passage
“Jesus told them this story: “No person takes cloth off a new coat to cover a hole on an old coat. Why? Because he ruins the new coat, and the cloth from the new coat will not be the same as the old cloth. People never pour new wine into old wine bags. Why? Because the new wine will break the bags, and the wine will spill out and the wine bags will be ruined. People always put new wine into new wine bags.”"
— Luke 5:36-38 (Read Full Text)
Key Thought
Jesus’ point is clear. Don’t try to limit God’s new life in Christ. Don’t try to contain it with your old religious categories. Don’t try to dilute it with your old religious practices. Jesus brings something new. Celebrate it. Enjoy its blessings. Be challenged by its demands and rejoice in its promises. But don’t ever try to simply attach it to what you had before. The call of Christ is new, fresh, and all encompassing. Begin each day with fresh eyes and new ears with the expectation that the Lord will do something you have never seen or expected. You won’t feel safe. It won’t be predictable. But, it will be marvelous!
Prayer
Forgive me, dear Father, for limiting the awesome power you have brought me in Jesus. Open my mind and my heart and my eyes and my ears so that I can imagine more fantastically, believe more completely, see more fully, and hear more richly all that you have done, are doing, and will do in my life in Jesus. It is in his name I pray. Amen.
Related Scriptures
“From this time on we don’t think of any person like the world thinks of people. It is true that in the past we thought of Christ like the world thinks. But we don’t think that way now. If any person is in Christ, then that person is made new. The old things have gone; everything is made new! All this is from God. Through Christ, God made peace between us and himself. And God gave us the work of bringing people into peace with him.”
“With God’s power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or think of. To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever. Amen.”
“Yes, God is working in you. God helps you want to do the things that please him. And he gives you the power to do these things.”
From What Jesus Did
