It’s mind-boggling how much people spend on self-improvement. From the books, to the online courses, to personal coaching all to change how we are. Most of it fails because people want new improvements but with very little change in their lives. You can’t have both. Jesus makes that clear in that the new work that He wants to do will take some change. The sooner we prepare ourselves, the quicker it will happen.
Mark 2:22
“No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost and the skins as well; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”
Got to Change
If you want things to change, you can’t keep doing it the way you’ve done it in the past. For the Jews, it was adhering to the old system of the law. Jesus came to change things, and the old way of doing things according to the law wasn’t going to work. They had gotten into a spiritual rut and didn’t even know the heart of God anymore.
Stretched to the Limit
Wineskins were made out of goat bladders. They would turn them inside out and pour wine into them to let it ferment. The gas from the fermentation would stretch the skin, but it wouldn’t break. That could only be done once because if you put new wine into an already stretched wineskin, it would burst, and you would lose the wine.
You Can’t Have Both
Jesus wants to do a new work in your life, but He is not going to do it through your old ways. It is going to take learning His ways and turning away from some old habits. As we break those old routines, we will start to see new growth in our lives. Don’t stress about these but trust Jesus and let Him lead you to where He wants to take you.