11/10/83
Luke 5:39
'No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, the old is better.'
MTM:
The carnal nature, the old wine is often considered better, for no one immediately likes to be told his life could be better than what it is.
First we must consider the new whether it be wine or life and then taste it and see for ourselves. Once we've tasted it with an open mind, emphasizing that point then we can make a decision. If in our mind we say over and over again we won't like something even before we've tried it chance are we won't like it once we've tried it. An open mind is essential to trying new things. We must realize there is 50-50 chance of liking or not liking something new. Not a 90-10 percentage the 90 being not liking it.
With that open mind once we take the steps to trying the new we will honestly be able to decide for the old or new. Though we're reluctant to break away from the old which we are used to maybe not satisfied with but used to. We can discover the more satisfying and be happy in changing and once again having a new thing becomes comfortingly old.
(4/15/09 - Update
I suppose this might old true if you're living a life you enjoy. You'd rather not change if things are going well. However if you've an unsatisfactory life you mostly welcome a change for the better.
This verse holds true in many ways.
If you're enjoying the wine you're drinking there is no reason to change.
There are things in all our lives we enjoy to the point we don't want to try other things. We have our favorite brands of things. And yes we might try other brands when situations become difficult such as they raise the price of a favorite brand, and if we're lucky we find a new brand that can satisfy us. Once in awhile we might even find a new brand we like even more than the old but having never tried the new one until circumstances urged us that way we hadn't a clue we'd like it more.
The old adage of a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush, meaning being happy with what you have and not with what you might possibly have holds true here as well. People might not want to try new because they have the old.
There is a danger in getting comfortable with much of anything you know. We get comfortable and then we risk losing that comfort. Not that we must go about living unhappily because life at best offers us temporary comfort, but living here in our sin-filled earth we have a perfect opportunity to realize that there is only one source of true, real comfort.
We are told to look to heaven as our hope, to put our treasures in heaven, not here. There's a reason for that.
At best the joys we have here are temporary and EVERY single one of them is subject to changing, to disappearing. There isn't a single earthly contentment we have that can't change to be otherwise, not one. If we have money we can lose it, if we have the love of our life it can find another or die on us, if we have good health we can die suddenly. We cannot count on even tomorrow being available to us. You have a home, well nowadays it's very apparent that not even that is secure. You own a home then taxes rise up horribly, the house burns down. You have possession you cherish and then a robber comes and steals or destroys them. There isn't any earthly joy you can know you'll have forever- not one. We can't even count on our own mental health- with various diseases and such that can alter that in a heartbeat.
No, we don't want to look at these things. We want to believe we can hold onto enough contentment in life that in the end of it no matter how we meet our death we can say we lived a good life.
We are to look to the new, which is Christ. We are to place our hope on things eternal. We live now but this life isn't the end for us. Death isn't our end. Our hope is in life everlasting. The new life in Christ is much better than our old life will ever be. We don't think it because we can't grasp hold of it but must believe it by faith. We are satisfied with the old wine when the new will be much, much more satisfying if we only believe and taste of it.
May God help us all to believe in the new life to come and find out comfort in the hope of that new life and not life here and now.
By the mercy and grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ now and forever.
Amen.
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