Good Morning Friends,
“Then John’s disciples came and asked him, ‘How
is it that we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus
answered, ‘How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The
time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will
fast. 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.’” (Matthew 9:14-17)
Jesus came challenging deeply held beliefs and
traditions. What He was offering could not be accepted and just become a part
of the old system, the old way of approaching God. It was something totally unfamiliar
and required a radical shift in thinking and in life.
The Jews struggled with that because their
roots in the old system were so deep. They couldn’t envision approaching God
any way but the way of their fathers, the way they had been used to for
generations. Because they couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let go of the past, many of
them missed what Jesus was offering; the peace, the joy, the freedom, the
eternity of a fresh relationship with the Heavenly Father.
What Jesus offers continues to challenge deeply
held beliefs and traditions. Men and women continue to fall back into old
belief systems. People want to approach God in the way that seems right to them
-- by something they offer Him. But nothing that we can ever offer God will put
us into right relationship with Him. That is available in only one way, through
the new thing Jesus offered then, and still offers today, a relationship with
God through what He’s done.
His, by Grace, Steve
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