Luke 5:33-37

33 One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?”

34 Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. 35 But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

36 Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.

37 “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins.

The deliverymen from Lowe’s were not very happy campers when they arrived 2 hours late last week to install our new refrigerator. To make matters worse, they quickly realized that our new appliance was not going to fit through our old doorways. An hour or so later, once they removed our back door from its hinges and disassembled the fridge and freezer doors, we stood and admired our new, shiny, energy efficient food storage container….that no longer fits into the 30 year old cabinetry in our home.

Time to renovate!!!

Romans 12:1-2

And so, dear brothers and sisters,[a] I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.[b] 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

The more I worship God, the more I realize that my mind continually needs to be renovated. As the Holy Spirit reveals areas of sin in my life (some, I have discovered, have been hiding for 30 + years!) I have the choice to:

-try to fix the “issues” by myself by using a new patch on an old garment

or

-submit my body as a living and holy sacrifice to God, so that He can burst the lies of the enemy, create a new wineskin and fill it with His Truth

The process of renovating my heart is often a messy and sometimes painful experience. But, I know that copying the behavior and customs of the world won’t provide me with the freedom my soul is yearning for.

As another year draws to an end- again,

and we begin the process of renovating our kitchen- again,

I am reminded that I continually need to apply this age-old phrase to my life: out with the old, in with the new –again!