HOST: Michael Whitworth
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. And people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins—and the wine is destroyed, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh wineskins.”
New vs. old—it is a never-ending debate among many. Some hold to the theory that anything new is better, while others contend that the old and familiar is always preferable. The Jews of Jesus’ day wanted to force Jesus into the mold of the old law and of the traditions that had become so important to them. What they failed to understand was that Jesus had come to bring the old covenant to a close and establish a new, better covenant with mankind. With Jesus came the dawning of a new day in man’s relationship with God, and with that new day came some necessary changes to the way man viewed that relationship. Our relationship with God through Christ is the result of Jesus’ redeeming work and the covenant that He established through His death on the cross. That “new” covenant which allows us to be children of God and have eternal salvation continues to be the one that God desires for us and the greatest blessing of our lives.
What blessings do we receive from our covenant with Christ?
Don’t forget to pray and have a great day!
