MARY-ELLEN'S NOTE

"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." Matthew 9:16-17 NIV
I've never been much a wearer of jeans, but when I was nine-years-old or so, I had a pair of well-worn light blue denim jeans that fit like a glove. They were comfortable and moved with me like a second skin. I wore them for every day, and they were subjected to much outdoor activity. Alas, too much crawling on concrete, probably drawing hopscotch lines, and scraped knees while bike riding or running caused the material to wear thin and give way.

Jeans with holes in the knees were not the fashion then, so I bought iron-on patches. Even with considerable care, I could not get these stiff patches to stay on my old jeans. Granny suggested soft material from old gunny or feed sacks, but the patched look made me feel like an agile scarecrow. I soon outgrew the jeans anyway.

So often we are like my experience with my favorite jeans. We are so comfortable with "old clothes" or familiar ways that we hesitate to move on to new experiences and new ways of doing. As we grow spiritually, we may keep trying to patch up the old ways and lug them along, only to find that we have outgrown the old and truly need to strive toward new ways and new behaviors. We need to aim toward new goals and decisions.

As 2 Corinthians 5:17 points out, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." The gift of the Holy Spirit begins to transform us from the inside out. We become a new person, leaving the old behind. Perhaps we do take the best of the old with us as part of our motivation for learning and growth, but the Spirit and Bible learning transform this worthy material into the new being which lives, loves, and grows toward being a new creature in Christ Jesus.

…..Mary-Ellen Grisham (meginrose@gmail.com) by way of Eternal Ink (eternal_ink@associate.com) “Christian Voices” (www.ChristianVoicesWorldwide.net)