Whine or Wine.

We have so much to be thankful for and yet we complain all too often. "It's too hot", yet we have air-conditioning. "I  can't find anything to wear," with a closet full of clothes. We get impatient if the line is too long at the grocery, where we have access to any food we want. Too often we don't even know what real suffering or persecution is! Yet Jesus said troubles would be a part of our very Christian experience. But also that we could be overcomers.

Let's face it, nobody likes to suffer. Nobody likes to go through trials. But during the times our faith is tested, people take note of how we handle the situation. Will they hear us whine or will they taste and see wine in new wineskins?




 
John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

Matthew 9:17 "Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

Psalms 34:8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good;  Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!


Acts 16:23-27   And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely.Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself.

II Corinthians 4:8-9 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;