Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it’s not wise to ask such questions. ~Ecclesiastes 7:10
See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you. ~Isaiah 42:9
Forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up. Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. ~Isaiah 43:18-19
He told them this parable: “No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not patch the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskin will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, “the old is better.” ~Luke 5:36-39
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come. ~2 Corinthians 5:17
Change is such a hard thing to accept, but, when you consider the alternative, death, it starts looking a little better, don’t you think? You might think that death itself is a big change! But the point here is that living things grow and change all the time. Dead things don’t change, except for decay, but that is change imposed by outside forces.
We may not like change, but it is unavoidable. Thank the Lord for change, because it is the sign of life. As parents, we grow concerned when we do not see healthy change in our children. If they become stuck in a certain stage of growth, we grow concerned because something isn’t right. It is natural to expect everything to grow as a sign of health and vitality.
Growth doesn’t just mean get bigger. It also means development to the point of reproduction. It’s pretty typical for those of us who are older to look back to, “the good old days,” when life was better. Kathy has shared with me before that there are times when she wishes that she was a child again, back on her parents’ farm. However, she confessed, “Lots of time, what I’m really missing is the freedom of having very little responsibility. I could just go outside and play with my cats and have fun because someone else was shouldering the burden of the responsibility of my life.” Those were “good old days,” for her, for sure.
Sometimes, we try too hard to hang onto things the way they were. That can be as unhealthy as a child who refuses to grow up and take responsibility for his or her life. We like the comfort, the familiarity. We don’t want to give it up. We can become stuck in a certain stage of development, especially in organizations that mean a great deal to us. Being stuck in a particular rut or routine, no matter how we may cherish it, can be of just as much concern as it may be for a parent with a child who is stuck in a certain stage of development.
When Jesus talked about new wine needing new skins, it was because his life and ministry represented a huge change in Jewish thinking and life. And those most resistant to him were the religious Pharisees trying to preserve the ancient ways. These days the same kind of feelings happen when churches need to change the ways they do ministry. There will be people who remember revival meetings in tents with sawdust on the floors and the feeling is, without the sawdust there won’t be revival!
More commonly, probably all of us relate most emotionally to whatever music was in vogue when we got saved. That music ministered to us and spoke to our hearts. So, we “don’t get” the new music. It doesn’t bless us the way the hymns do. But a lot of the old hymns we love were “new” music before we heard them. And they were unappreciated by the folks who really loved the even older music!
Change is just a part of life and doing it well is a sign of health. God built change into the DNA of life itself and what a blessing that He did. Isn’t it wonderful that when we are born anew in Christ, we don’t have to just try to patch and adapt our old lives to a new way of thinking? No, He makes us a new creation, starting over with new potential and new possibilities and new responsibilities in Him! We are not our old selves anymore. We have been made new! Forget the former things.
Our denomination supports change. There is a vitality process that helps congregations review and evaluate their ministries. We must honor the blessings and traditions of the past, with thanksgiving. But we must also seek out and discern what new ways of doing ministry will bless the current generation.
Forget your old ways! He has given us new life that springs up, bringing water into the desert of our souls. We should never lament for the old days before Christ. That is not wise. We never want to go back to the time when we didn’t know about His forgiveness and His comfort and guidance. We were clueless then, but now we know, and we have been changed to accommodate our new way.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, I love You and You make every day new every morning! I want to live and grow in You. I want to be open to learn new ways of doing ministry so I can watch you make new believers too! In Jesus’ name, amen.
Song: All Things New
Comments
Post a Comment