Luke 5:36-39 (NLT)
36 Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment. 37 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. 38 New wine must be stored in new wineskins. 39 But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”
Deuteronomy 30:6 (NLT)
6 “The Lord your God will change your heart and the hearts of all your descendants, so that you will love him with all your heart and soul and so you may live!

I went to buy a bottle of wine the other day as a thank you gift for the host of a going away dinner. I used to know wines, the grapes, the winery’s, the vintages, the regions, the micro-climates, etc., but after not drinking for 19 years, I’ve kind of lost touch. I’m sitting in front of a bunch of wines at Wal-Mart (yes, I also needed bread, bananas, cat litter and oil for the chain saw) thinking WTH? I don’t know a thing about wines, and there’s no one here who’s gonna help me. For old time sake I should have looked for some Mad Dog 20/20.

Christ isn’t here to blend in. He’s not a petite syrah blend subject to the vintners hand. He’s a whole new thing. He can’t be poured into your old life without blowing it up. He can’t be sown onto your old life without ruining it. He will not just be plugged in as an accessory.

The old is just fine they say. Christ says no, it isn’t. Try something new, something so completely disruptive that it’s impossible to make it fit with the old.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control God’s way, not ours.