God
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)
Near my house is a gas station/convenience store that just underwent a makeover, changing their utilitarian look into a warm and inviting neighborhood haven, something like a coffee bar with gas pumps.
When I walked into the place, however, it appeared the employees missed the makeover memo. The kid behind the counter wore a new uniform that matched the new look, but he still wore the same sullen expression from before, perhaps a little bored and a bit put out that an actual customer had walked in to disturb him.
It made me think about how we try to put new wine into old wineskins. Jesus says we’re doomed to failure because “the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined” (Mark 2:22 NIV).
For you to become the person God wants you to be in 2012, you will have to abandon the old wineskins in your life so that God can pour himself into the wineskin of your new life-in-Christ.
This may mean, for instance, that we cannot try to pour the new wine of “honesty at work” into an old wineskin of “cutting corners.” Otherwise, “both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined.”
This year, you will have to change in order to be the person God wants you to be. Are you ready to make the changes? Do you feel the excitement of knowing God is right there with you, not just helping you change, but leading you in the change?
Jon Walker is author of the small group study In Visible Fellowship: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer’s Classic Work ‘Life Together’ and managing editor of Rick Warren’s Daily Devotionals. © 2011 Jon Walker. Used by permission.
In Visible Fellowship: A Contemporary View of Bonhoeffer’s Classic Work Life Together
by: Jon Walker
publisher: Leafwood Publishers, published: 2011-10-11
ASIN: 0891122958
EAN: 9780891122951
sales rank: 18635
price: $8.24 (new), $8.53 (used)
Jon Walker engages Bonhoeffer’s classic work on Christian life in community, presenting its rich and vital themes for Christians in the twenty-first century. Christians were never meant to live life alone. Only ”in visible fellowship” do we learn to love one another and to live like Jesus is real.
Can you go it alone in this world and live out the Christian mission and life? Can you possibly live out the full life Christ promised with all of its power and wonder without the love of the family of God?
In his first book on Bonhoeffer’s writings, Costly Grace, Jon Walker gave a contemporary view of The Cost of Discipleship. In this second book, focusing on Bonheoffer’s follow-up book, Life Together, Walker searches deeply into Bonheoffer’s classic work to bring us a contemporary view of life in the body of Christ.
In our individualistic culture, Christians learn how to live in communities of love. God is relentless in his command to ”love each other in the same way that I have loved you”–personal and up-close, meeting the needs of the undeserving, not attacking their faults.
Walker brings a clear voice and powerful teaching to Bonheoffer’s classic work on the church enabling you to understand the great importance of the Body of Christ. Through life together we grow into authentic spiritual maturity. As we live out the life of faith together, the love, forgiveness, and power of Christ literally and visibly comes alive for the world.
God
