Time to Change Your Clothes

Put off the Flesh; Put on Christ
A seminary professor who taught the Christian graces of love and forbearance for forty years until he retired. Occupying himself in his retirement years, he poured a new concrete driveway to his house. Finished, he went in to rest and get a glass of ice tea. Returning later to view his proud achievement, he discovered that the neighborhood kids were putting their footprints all in the wet concrete. The angry professor chased the kids down in a rage and beat the tar out of the ones he could catch. Hearing the commotion, the professor’s wife rushed into the yard, saw the angry professor thrashing the kids, and began to reprimand him: "What a shame," she said. "For forty years you have taught love, forgiveness and forbearance. Now look at you. You’ve lost your testimony." To which he replied: "That was all in the abstract. This is in the concrete.

Groan, okay I know, but this reflects the plight of many Christians who know they are to live a new life, but find their old one haunting them. The apostle Paul in Colossians 3:5-17 addresses this very issue.

The passage begins by saying in verse 5, “put to death your members upon the earth.” This should put to rest the misconception that many Christians have that our spiritual transformation from our old self to our new life in Christ is passive. This is an active imperative verb; therefore it is something in which we are commanded to participate. God does not take over our life and change us; we must lay it down of our own accord, then He will begin a righteous work in us from the inside out. What are these sins in us that we are to put off? Paul gives us a list of twelve. Now if that was all there is to it, the apostle could have stopped there, but he does not. This is because of another big misconception: We can shake the old sin from our members by merely having the will to change. It is not about will power; it is about the self-control to replace what the sinful behavior of the past with righteous disciplines. Correspondingly, Paul also list twelve things we must “put on.” The two lists are contrasted in the following table:

PUT OFF - PUT ON

Fornication; 3:5 - Compassion; 3:12

Uncleaness; 3:5 - Kindness; 3:12

Passion; 3:5 - Humility; 3:12

Evil Desire; 3:5 - Gentleness; 3:12

Covetousness; 3:5 - Patience; 3:12

Anger; 3:8 -Forbearance; 3:13

Wrath; 3:8 - Forgiveness; 3:13

Malice; 3:8 - Love; 3:14

Railing; 3:8 - Peace of Christ; 3:15

Shameful Speaking; 3:8- Thankfulness; 3:15

Lies; 3:9 - The Word of Christ in music; 3:16

Racial and social prejudice; 3:11 - Dedication to Christ; 3:17

The passage also includes motivation for change. Christians should hate sin. It is what keeps people away from the love of God and condemned to an eternity in Hell. Paul tells us in verse 6, “For it is because of these things that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.” Furthermore, we are “God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,” As God’s adopted sons and daughters, we are to work to resemble our new Father, instead of our old one. “Holy” means separated unto God in Christ. “Beloved” is a perfect passive participle, indicating a past action having continued effects. We can overcome the hold these sins have upon us if we begin to know righteousness and seek to develop those godly characteristics in our life. Determine that you are going to put them on, and do so to the utmost of your ability.

First, in verse twelve, Paul mentions compassion. Compassion is not always a natural state of the human heart. Jesus becomes for us a model of compassion in that “while we were yet sinner, He died for us.” Compassion means to care for other’s needs and conditions. It requires that we look outside of ourselves. Next, we are told to put on “kindness,” that is, sweetness, moral goodness, or integrity. Kindness requires that we do not stop at the emotional stage of compassion, but reach out to meet another’s needs. Continuing in verse 12, he mentions two qualities: “humility” and “gentleness.” These could be combined into the idea of meekness. This is power under control. It is voluntarily not asserting yourself over another. Christ is a perfect example of meekness; all the power of God at His disposal, yet “led like a sheep to the slaughter.” Finally in this verse, Paul mentions “patience.” Patience is the quality of endurance that will not be exasperated. It is the self-restraint that will not quickly retaliate a wrong. It is the opposite of wrath and revenge.

Patience should manifest itself in the next two qualities mentioned in verse 13: bearing with others and forgiving one another. The word “forgive” here means to forgive graciously. The possibility of complaints and quarrels of Christians against one another is conceded in Paul’s statement “whoever has a complaint against anyone.” We must forgive others as the Lord forgave us.

In verse 14, Paul adds the discipline from which all others must flow: “love.” Put on love over all the qualities of compassion, kindness, etc. Love is like the belt that binds all our garments together into one united adornment. Here, love is agape, that wide-reaching affection, good will, and benevolence such as Christ has toward men. Love is the bond which binds the church together into a perfect unity.

After love is in place for a foundation, verse 15 tells us to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts… and be thankful.” The peace of Christ is to rule in our hearts. I think about this like a policeman; whatever seeks to disturb the peace has to be arrested. We must not permit angry emotions to rule in our hearts, rather let the peace of Christ rule your minds, will, emotions, and conscience. We are called individually to enjoy God’s peace, and also called as a group in one body unto peace. The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace and only grows well in peace. No good progress can be made while fighting is going on. To me, the context reads that we should be thankful that we have been called in peace into one body. The peace of God is to police our hearts, and in our group, whenever there are strains within the body that would tend to make it fly apart. For this we should be thankful.

To share the peace among ourselves, leading to encouragement, Paul includes in verse 16, “let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” The word of Christ is not to dwell within us, and then remain there; we are to teach and admonish (or warn) one another with this word. One of the most effective ways to teach and admonish one another is by music. So often, when I am need of encouragement I sing a song to the Lord. Those words bringing forth with them the scriptural truths that I need to connect with my Lord. I will also start the day with a song to help set me in the right spiritual mindset from the start. Admittedly, I have spared most people outside of my family the intonation of my voice, but certainly if such brings blessings to me it should be shared with others.

Finally, I have added Paul’s admonition in verse 17, “Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.” This call for total dedication to Christ prevents the need for the list to go on ad infinitum. Such discipline of our mind, emotions, and action truly allows God to being to spiritually transform us in to the image of His beloved Son.

In short, Paul is telling us that if we continue to do the things we did before our encounter with Jesus, we cannot expect any true changes in our life. However, if we walk in righteousness, God will change us from the inside out. In my life, I have memorized a very similar list that Paul gives us under the title of the “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22, 23). These have become a plumb line for me to judge my progress toward God’s standards.

Are You Abiding?

1 I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 "Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 "You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 "If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. 7 "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 "My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples. 9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. John 15:1-10

To “abide” in the Lord is to remain in Him. Because in John 15:4, it is an active imperative verb, it means that we are commanded to continue in our spiritual position of being in Christ. Jesus uses this word 11 times in the beginning of John 15. This is something we are to strive to do. It is what Jesus begged His companions, Peter, James and John, to do with Him in the Garden. Generally, we refer to this as faithfulness.

In this passage, Jesus is sharing with us the necessity of abiding in Him. We cannot “bear fruit” without being connected to Him. “Apart from me you can do nothing;” nothing worth doing, anyway. Ultimately, Jesus tells us that we can tell if we are, indeed, connected and abiding in Him by “bearing much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” Love is mentioned especially here by Jesus in verse 9 and 10, as He does elsewhere talking about this greatest of virtues. One cannot help but think of this fruit described by the Apostle Paul as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” These attributes are those whose presence, or absence, become a measure of our following this command to abide in Him.

In his first epistle, John elaborates upon the concept that Jesus introduces here in John 15. In 1John, he tells us how to actually accomplish this essential part of our relationship with God though Jesus.

For one to abide in Jesus, he must:

2:6 – “walk as Jesus walked.”
2:10; 3:14; 4:12 – “loves his brother.”
2:14,24,27 – abides in “His Word.”
2:17 – abides in “His will.”
3:6,9 – avoids sin
3:24 – “keeps His commands”
3:24; 4:13 – possesses “the Spirit”
4:15 – “confesses Jesus is the Son of God”
4:16 – “dwells in love”

Because abiding in Christ is a command, it requires self-discipline for it to be obeyed. It is this plugging-in of our lives with Jesus’ that allows us to mature and succeed at our stated goal: eternal life with God.

Jude 20-21 “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.”

"Walk Like a Man" of God

“So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way” (Ephesians 4:17-20).

I heard a definition of the contrast between infatuation and love. It says, "Infatuation is when you think your husband is as handsome as Tom Cruise, as amusing as Rodney Dangerfield, as intellectual as Albert Einstein, as devout as Billy Graham, and as athletic as Hulk Hogan." That is infatuation. "Love is realizing that your husband is as handsome as Albert Einstein, as intellectual as Hulk Hogan, as devout as Tom Cruise, as athletic as Rodney Dangerfield, and as amusing as Billy Graham. But you love him anyway." You see, there’s a big difference between infatuation and love.

We live in a world full of such contrasts: black and white, positive and negative, north and south. In this passage, the apostle Paul discusses some of the starkest contrasts that should affect our walk with Him.

The first contrast is the distinction between Jew and Gentile. Under the Old Testament, there was no greater distinction than being a covenant Jew and a Gentile. God told Abraham rather clearly in Genesis 17 that those without circumcision, the sign of the covenant, we cut off from being a people before Him. Today, being His child is not limited to those being a Jew outwardly, but one inwardly having the circumcision made without hands. Therefore if we are of the spiritual nation of Israel, that is a Christian, we are not to “walk” like the ungodly. Their unrighteous ways are a result from being alienated from God because of sin. Without an intimate knowledge of God, they were subject to their own hardness of hard. But we, therefore, are able to approach the throne of grace with confidence of our forgiveness in Him. There is no excuse for those who know God to walk like a “Gentile” without trying to walk in righteousness.

The second contrast is between light and darkness. Paul says that the Gentiles are “darkened in their understanding.” Conversely, John says in 1John 1, “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all,” and again, “Walk in the light as he is in the light.” Light is purity and divine energy. After his encounter with God, Moses’ face glowed for time so brightly, that the people asked him to put on a veil, because they were not used to it. Some prefer the darkness, but as Christians we are not to have fellowship with darkness. Consider when you walk into the barn and flip on the light, the mice and the cockroaches all scatter because they do not like the light. Also, when you have been in the dark long enough, a bright light that suddenly shines is almost painful. But as Christians, if we stay in the light of God fellowship, avoiding the dark detours, we will seek to walk in the light of purity more diligently, like moths to a flame.

The final contrast is the one of life and death. Those apart from God are excluded from eternal life with God; rather they face an eternal death with Satan. But for those who are in Christ, death has no power over him. As it is written, “O death where is your victory, o death where is your sting” (1 Cor. 15). Christians have a heavenly hope to press on toward this prize of life with Him. Therefore, we must be a people who walk in hope and steadfastness, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Let our walk be in big contrast to that of this world.

"Be Holy, as your Father in heaven is holy." -Jesus