New Wine, New Wineskins, A New Year's Resolution - Rev. Dr. Frank Balgeman

Описание: Every Moment Is Midnight: Why the Cross Makes Every Day New Year's Day
New Year's Eve feels special because we're creatures bound by time. We feel the weight of regret behind us and the pull of hope ahead. But here's the physics: our straight-line thinking about past and future comes from the second law of thermodynamics—the arrow of time itself.
God exists outside these constraints. Picture an infinite sphere: every point becomes its center. That's how God relates to both space and time. For Him, every moment is equally fresh, equally pregnant with possibility. There is no page-flipping on a cosmic calendar.
So why do our fresh starts so often fail? Because we try to pour new wine into old wineskins. We rearrange furniture instead of moving into a new house. We make resolutions in February-proof containers that crack under pressure.
The new wine Jesus spoke of is His own blood—meant to be drunk deeply, not rationed cautiously. And new wineskins? They're lives that yield to the cruciform shape of God's kingdom. They stretch. They expand. They're transformed by crucified hardships rather than resisting them.
Here's the secret the cross contains: every day is already new. Sanctification isn't a once-a-year reset. It's waking each morning inside the reality that you've been crucified with Christ and raised with Him. The old has gone; the new has come—again and again.
The cross stands at the center of God's infinite sphere, which means it's the center everywhere. Your joys, losses, mundane Wednesdays, and breathtaking moments are all your participation in His eternal, cross-shaped story.
You don't have to earn a fresh start. It's already yours—purchased at an unpayable price, given freely. The endings you grieve contain beginnings you cannot yet see. Your failures have already been nailed to wood.
Drink deeply. Let your life become a flexible wineskin shaped by grace. Every moment is a new beginning—not because the calendar says so, but because the cross does.