New Wine, Old Bottles
“And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.”Mark 2:22 (KJV)
Picture someone who comes to Christ in the middle of a busy career. They are baptized, they are changed, and on Monday they go back to the same work. They sprinkle a few verses on it and keep everything else the same. Before long something doesn’t fit.
Jesus gave a picture for it: “no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.”
New life in Christ doesn’t always mean quitting your job. But it does mean everything gets looked at again. How you sell, what you promise, what you won’t do for money, why you do it at all. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”
Sometimes the honest answer is that the old bottle has to go. That takes courage. It also makes room for something that can actually hold what God has given you.
Read it yourself
Read Mark 2:18–22. What question were people asking Jesus that led to this picture?
Is there an old bottle in your work that your new life in Christ no longer fits?
Lord, I am a new creature in Christ. Show me what in my work needs to be made new, and give me the courage to change it. Amen.