We cannot receive from God while holding tightly to what we have.
Last week I read these words by Dr. Henry Cloud which impacted me greatly he said….”Getting to the next level always requires ending something; leaving it behind and moving on. Growth demands that we move on. Without the ability to end things, people stay stuck, never becoming who they are meant to be, never accomplishing all that their talents and abilities afford them”
The scriptures show you cannot receive anything new without giving up on something about the old. This is why Jesus said as a law of life, you cannot pour new wine into old wineskins. To attempt to do that is to destroy both.
Did the scriptures not show the same from the beginning this principle in saying “so shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife” You cannot cleave to anything new without giving up something in your hands today.
Apostle James said “lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness and receive with meekness the engrafted word…” Peter also says “laying aside all malice and guile…..desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby”
You cannot receive the new without laying aside the old. Forget the former things, He declares, because I do a new thing and it shall spring forth. He takes away the first to establish the second.
This is why repentance from dead works must precede faith towards God. If people are not convicted of the sinful nature of the old life and you just say salvation is about receiving the new life without any conviction to lay aside the old, you may just be doing great dis-service to the sinner by attempting to pour new wine into old wine skins.
This is why people who over flog the issue of saying we don’t give our lives over to Christ what we do is just receive Him, may be missing a point in their theology that the old timers understood.
It is simple, you cannot receive the new without giving up the old. If the cross is not applied to the old and you teach resurrection you create a mixed multitude that dies in the wilderness when tested.
Whosoever will not lose his life cannot receive my life which is eternal is the teaching of Christ.
Matthew 10:39 “He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”