School Shootings and Old Wineskins

This morning, another tragic school shooting - this time in Newtown, Connecticut - took the lives of 27 people. At an elementary school, a man with two guns opened fire. 18 children are among the victims.

Recently, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend and himself. A man opened fire inside a movie theater in Colorado.

The outcry is as painful as it is predictable.

"More gun control."

"More mental health."

One Tweet said: "There can be no debate now."

But there is a solution to all of this. It's not gun control. It's not more mental health. It's the solution nobody wants to hear about. It's the solution nobody's talking about - even among "Christian" circles.

The solution? New hearts.

Jesus put it this way:

“No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old.  

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined.  

But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. 

And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’” 

Luke 5:36-39

All the gun control and mental health in the world won't change what's inside a man's heart. Unless we become a nation of changed hearts, we will continue to see school shootings.

You must be born again.

When you are, God gives you a new heart, with new desires. The evil you once loved, you now despise. The righteousness you once ran from, you now run toward. Because that's what you crave.

When that happens, you influence the people around you with the good news, that this new heart is available to anyone who humbles himself, quits pretending he can find the answers on his own, and calls upon the name of the Lord.

When you do, they get new hearts, too.

Until then, we will continue to drink up iniquity like water.

And we'll continue to see school shootings.

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