“Neither do people 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.” Matthew 9:17 NIV
Jesus is talking about the goatskin containers that people used to hold water or wine in during those days. When these wineskins were new, they were flexible and still had the ability to stretch. So, if you had a new wineskin, and you filled it with new wine that was still fermenting and still expanding, no problem. You could fill it right up and the skin would expand with the wine. But you can only stretch a goatskin so far. As the skins got older and all stretched out, they became more brittle. So, if you took an old wineskin and filled it with new wine, as the wine expanded it would burst the wineskin and you would lose both the skin and the wine as well. The old is incompatible with the new. If Jesus were giving this illustration today, he would use more modern examples. He would say, you can’t play a DVD in a VCR machine. If you did, you would ruin both the DVD and the VCR machine. The old is incompatible with the new. Ultimately, this means we can’t just keep on living as if Jesus never came. As God said through the prophet Jeremiah, “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant.” Jesus said, “The time has come.” It is a new covenant in Jesus’ blood. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and everyone who puts their faith in Him will be saved. The new covenant is incompatible with the old. Now that Jesus has come everything has changed – changed for the better. It is time to leave the old behind. Have you done so?
PRAYER THOUGHT
Thank you, Lord, for enabling me to leave the old behind.
PRAYER FOR TODAY
Thank You, Lord Jesus, that I can leave the Old way of life behind, and embrace the New life that You bring through the New Covenant of grace, through Your life, death, resurrection and ascension. AMEN
I.B.R.A. Readings
Psalm 104:14-30
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