So I was reading this morning in Mark 2, read through verses 22 and 23 and kept going, but the Holy Spirit pulled my chin back up to the top of the page to read verse 23 again.  Okay… you can’t put new wine into an old wineskin… I know, I’ve heard this a hundred times, read it at least a couple dozen times, what do you want me to get here Lord?

“Get rid of your old wineskins”

As I sat and listened, looked up commentaries on this parable, put it down and came back to it again a few hours later, it occurred to me that I have tons of old “wineskins” and if truth be told, we all do.  Personally and in ministry…

• The “wineskin” of a past unequally yoked-marriage and the residue still hanging on in my redeemed, covenant marriage. 
• The “wineskin” of my broken walls caused by sin and the consequences
• The “wineskin” of “we’ve always done it this way”
• The “wineskin” of legalistic traditions

The list could go on and on.  The truth of what Jesus was talking about and I believe still does today, is a simple truth most of us agree on:  Jesus came to replace the law, we have a new law called love and we are new creations if we believe in Jesus Christ as the one who stands in the gap for my sin.  Jesus was trying to show the religious leaders and tell them that very soon the religion they knew complete with priests, temple and alter would not exist.  He was telling them to stop putting all their hope and confidence in the old wineskin… stop leaning on the comfortable, the mediocre and the known and trust in HIM… have faith in Jesus, not the wineskin.  “The tablets of the law have been replaced by the tablet of the human heart, where God’s Spirit is writing the Word and making us like Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:1-3, 18)”

I realize today that there are old wineskins in my own life that I’m hanging onto.  I think we hang onto old wineskins in the modern church as well.  These old wineskins keep me stuck in the past, keep us from trusting God to work big, hairy, audacious things for His Kingdom and can keep the church from having the impact on the world around us.  Old wineskins are safe… but only with old wine in them. 

What old wineskins are you holding onto?  What old wineskins in the church are we holding onto?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.