Is everything working just peachy-keen for you? For many the Christmas season is a difficult one indeed; however, for some, life is anything but a bowl of cherries (enough of the fruit metaphors). The bottom line is that if your old way of thinking-believing isn’t working (only you can decide that), then you need to try something new, but remember this. You can’t put NEW WINE in that OLD WINESKIN.
We mentally KNOW that, we just don’t want to pay the price that it takes to DO that.
Life is so much more a product of how we see God than we know. I’m going to “generalize” for a moment now so don’t try and write me off with those “exceptions that seemingly take you off the hook. 
When we KNOW, truly and accurately, by the Spirit, where we have come from and who our Creator is, we can’t help but be transformed. We have lots of options other than the truth. We can see life as happenstance: feeling that we’re a product of a role of the dice, just a glob of matter trying our best to do and get the best from the hand we’ve been dealt.
We can see ourself coming from a God depicted in the Old Testament that’s capricious, heavy-handed, and more than demanding that we perform to the letter of the law which we admit that’s not possible. Or, we can see God as Jesus did: loving, compassionate, tender, forgiving, and never forsaking us or for any acts of religious sin.
NEVER!
But to go to the last paradigm requires that we break away from much that the church has taught for thousands of years: sin management. My DNA isn’t random or slices of matter. My DNA is spirit right from Abba Father who isn’t some “super man” out there somewhere. We are OF God, FROM God, and not able to be SEPARATED from God. Once we begin to think, believe, and behave as such life changes. Many old doctrines and belief systems no longer fit within our being. The new (but original) wine will shatter the old wineskins. God’s not into reward punishment. We’re not rewarded according to our sins or lack thereof.
But we hold on to our old wineskins as though they were God instead of progressively pointing the WAY to God. So much of what is required is that we go deeper, beyond, and further into the mystery of God- which so often is away from the “doctrines of men”. What are you afraid to lose, to give up: your “beliefs in God” or what the reality of God might be?
Wanna drink some new wine? God’s saved the best for last.
The God of the Old Testament is the same God Jesus told us about. In Genesis 4, God gave mercy to Cain by not killing him for Cain’s killing his brother, Abel. In the New Testament (Acts 5), we see God executing a righteous judgment by killing Ananias and Sapphira. It’s true that in the New Testament, unlike the Old, we see the fullness of His grace (John 1:16). We don’t have to live by the law, which is great because we can’t. That is a huge difference in the covenants. However, God’s mercy was evident even to Old Testament saints, like David. The OT king realized a great truth: God gives mercy to those who confess and forsake their sin (Ps. 51).
Jesus did speak many times about rewards and judgments. He made it known how we live our lives is very important to God. In the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:21-48), Jesus stated plainly we will be judged if we don’t live our lives with mercy. In Matthew 10:41, Jesus tells us if we receive a prophet rightly, we’ll get a righteous reward. Matthew 5:12 lets us know if we’re being persecuted for Jesus’ sake, we’ll receive a reward in heaven. The bottom line is that God’s grace and mercy is available to all, but the choice to accept or reject it carries certain consequences.