New Body, New Life

Matthew 9: 16 – 17

“No one sews a patch of unstrung 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 wine-skins. If they do, the skin will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskin will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wine-skins, and both are preserved.”

I have always wondered what the meaning of the verses above. Until recently, a colleague reminded me to forget the unhappy past and lead a new life. It was the way she said it that reminded me about the same verses.

We all have a few choices to decide the types of life we want to live. However, we are usually captured in a time-frame because we just could not forget or let go of our past. We do not know how to move forward, because we do not want to let go our past, including painful memories.

It is true that a person could not lead a new life while he is being chained to the past. There is no way a person can come out of the past by himself. He needs help.

When Jesus sacrificed Himself for our sake, we are broken from our past. We are qualified to be called the children of God. As God’s children, we need to ask our Father’s help to move on, to build new lives.

When God forgave and cleansed us from our past sins, we are like living in a new body. We are now in a new wineskin. People just do not ruin their new wineskin with old wine! Just the same, we do not want to ruin our new body with the sinful past.

Forget the past, but remember the bitter lesson learnt!

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Remain In God

“Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.” John 15: 4

Children are playful and curious explorers. They just do not stay still at one place and do not have to wait to be invited into any activities. They maybe lost without their parents yet they cannot control their own curiosities.

As God's children, we all have the same trait. We tend to be curious with things and events around us. Many times, we fall and lose our ways. With God's grace, we are brought back again, unhurt. Although we are warned time and again not to leave His side, we seldom remember the warning. All we know when we are lost is to cry for help!

Like the prodigal son, we learned our lessons well. We abide by Him, because we know to do so is the only way we can multiply and be fruitful. God is the main vine and we are the branches. Without the main vine, we are deprived of all the nutrients we need for physical and spiritual growth.

It is not that we are not encouraged to grow on our own; we ought to know what is right and wrong. We need to be careful with the pitfalls in our lives. It is better and safe to remain in the vine!

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Words and Deeds Go Together

"....... The harvest is plentiful but the worker are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field." - Matthew 9: 37-38

The time will come when each one of us will be a worker of the harvest. Helping out in the harvest does not mean preaching the good news using our mouths. It is not just being heard aloud in the broad daylight.

Being a harvest worker also means that we have to 'act out' what we are preaching! If we dare to preach God's words, we dare to act them out. Being God's children, we preach through our actions, which are seen by others all the time.

When God said that He loves the world, he did so by sending His only son to be with us. He acted on His words and not merely just said so. In the Bible, it is revealed many times what God did to make His own promises worked.

As God's children, we need to act on our words too. After all, words and deeds do go together!

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Build Life Seriuosly

Luke 6 : 48 - 49

v48 “He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built.”

v49 “But the one who hears my word and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Modern people like us love to have things done quickly. The shorter time it takes the better. We seldom think of the quality, it is always the quantity.

Do we have to live this way? Taking short cuts here and there just because we can make things work without investing some effort.

Perhaps life would be more interesting if we just exert a little effort. At least we are ready when we meet troubles.

If we take our lives lightly, we will be completely unprepared like the man building his house on sandy ground. We will lose all we have in a split of second!

God was serious when He first built His Kingdom. He still is serious when dealing with us, His children. He has never treated us lightly. That is why we should be as serious as Him.

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Whose Values to Follow?

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

Colossians 2: 8

Someone once shared that it is easier to continue in Christ than to make a comeback. I did not understand it till recently. Being in Christ means living according to His Words; in His discipline and allowing Christ to be the number one in our lives. Yet, when we made a comeback after leaving Him, the journey will be harder.

There are too many broken relationships to mend. What more, there are seeds of distrusts sown and need to be dug out before too late. It is not comfortable to rebuild a life as before.

We, human are consistently adding more values to our daily lives – not enough with the -isms we already have. Materialism, humanism, hedonism, legalism, secularism, naturalism, relativism and so on. As these values grow, we are drawing a line on our relationship with God. In short, we are held captive by these earthly values.

Yet, despise all our shortcomings; God wants us to return to Him. He wants us to let go the worldly values and embrace His love, values, grace and everything He has. Accept the opportunity to return to His cuddle, no matter how difficult it will be. God will not allow us to endure the hardship alone!

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