20 January 2020 - something new

Today's Readings

(Audio)

No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.

We have received new cloth and new wine in Jesus. We can't just patch our old cloaks or fill our old wineskins. What we receive from Jesus is something entirely new that can't simply be used to patch up the old. The old containers are inadequate to contain his gifts. 

When we try to make our response to the LORD just another aspect of our lives we risk ending up like Saul. He does some of what the LORD commands but not all. Yet he justifies the part he omits to himself by saying it is for the LORD.

I have brought back Agag, and I have destroyed Amalek under the ban.
But from the spoil the men took sheep and oxen,
the best of what had been banned,
to sacrifice to the LORD their God in Gilgal.

The LORD asks obedience of us. It is not an item to be fit among others on the list of our priorities. It is rather that it is meant to order the entire list. It is not one checkbox among many, but the principle by which our list is ordered. This is why our old lists can no longer be used. This is the new wine that our old wineskins cannot contain.

Obedience is better than sacrifice,
and submission than the fat of rams.
For a sin like divination is rebellion,
and presumption is the crime of idolatry.

Let us not be presumptuous about the command of the LORD. If there is ambiguity in what he asks let us seek clarity from him first. At the very least we need to at give him the opportunity to change our direction if we are potentially about to go the wrong way.

Let us dance to the dance Jesus gives us to the music he himself is playing. Let us feast in his presence and fast in his absence. He is meant to be preeminent in all things (see Colossians 1:18). May he be so in our hearts.

I will correct you by drawing them up before your eyes.
He that offers praise as a sacrifice glorifies me;
and to him that goes the right way I will show the salvation of God.