And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins. — Mark 2:22 NIV
Reflection on Verse for Today
When Jesus taught this, He knew that one day, the righteous life of Christ would be put on the record of every member of the Church. But He also knew that sinners had to turn away from their sin, repent of it, be forgiven of it, and believe in Him as their Savior before Christ’s righteousness could be put on them. The old life of self must give way to the new life in Christ, because the old righteousness must be replaced by a new one. The old sin nature that we got from Adam was supposed to be replaced by the new life that Christ gives to everyone who believes.
Unredeemed man still has a choice, just like the religious leaders of Israel. They can choose to believe in God and Jesus Christ, whom God sent to save them from their sins. If they do this, their sins will be forgiven and they will take on Christ’s righteousness. But once a person is saved, he or she has two options. The saved saint can either go back to the religiosity of their old sin nature and try to make themselves righteous by doing good works on their own, which God doesn’t accept, or they can live their new life in Christ and do works of Christ-righteousness as He lives in and through them. The first will hurt and quench the Spirit of God, while the second will bring God a lot of spiritual fruit.
Christians can choose to be controlled by the former self-life, which can only produce the unacceptable works of self-righteousness, OR they can choose to walk in spirit and truth and be controlled by the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which can only produce the acceptable works of Christ’s own righteousness. May we treat our old, sinful selves as dead and our new lives in Christ as alive. May we keep putting our self-life to death on the cross so that the life of Christ in us can show in everything we do.
My Prayer
Heavenly Father, I want to get rid of everything from my old life so that Your Spirit of truth can fill me day by day. I pray that I may daily die to my old self-effort and prideful self-righteousness and submit to the Holy Spirit who lives in me, so that the life of Christ may live in me to Your praise and glory. In Jesus mighty name I pray. Amen.
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