THE OLD SELF HAS TO GO

Luke 5:37-38  "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. The new wine would burst the old wineskin, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be put into new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the fresh and the new. 'The old is better,' they say."  NLT

       Two interesting observations come to my mind as I think about these verses. I have never really thought about it much before, but I think I can understand a little bit better what the Lord wants us to know by his using this illustration.

      You don't put your new self into your old self and expect it to survive. Our sinful nature will soon take over and cause our godly nature to be ruined. The two cannot co-exist. We cannot expect to live lives pleasing to the Lord and still live in sin. It simply will not work. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we take on His nature. We allow Him to remove from us our sinful attitudes and desires. We pursue a life of godliness and get rid of the old life as quickly as we can.

      You by nature like the old self better than the new self. Let's be honest. Sin is very pleasurable, for a season. There is an immediate rush in sin. We like the feelings that sin often brings to us. We don't want to give up those things that once brought us immediate pleasure. We are blinded by the moment and fail to grasp how not sinning can bring us greater joy and pleasure. It takes effort and determination to stay the course of faithful living. We are easily prone to wander away from it. We resist the changes the Lord wants to make in our lives.

       In order for us to keep our faith fresh and new, we must put on the new self. We must get rid of the old so that the new can flourish and grow. The new will be smothered and die if we don't.