I couldn’t help but think back to my freshman year of high school when I read what Paul writes about here in chapter 3:

 “Don’t lie to one another. You’re done with that old life. It’s like a filthy set of ill-fitting clothes you’ve stripped off and put in the fire. Now you’re dressed in a new wardrobe. Every item of your new way of life is custom-made by the Creator, with his label on it. All the old fashions are now obsolete. Words like Jewish and non-Jewish, religious and irreligious, insider and outsider, uncivilized and uncouth, slave and free, mean nothing. From now on everyone is defined by Christ, everyone is included in Christ. So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.”

Did you also find it strange that Paul is addressing our inward being like putting on clothing? We often judge others by what they’re wearing don’t we?

I flew home, after living for years in a third world country, only weeks before I began my freshmen year of high school. While living in this country, we only had the Sears catalog or the clothes our mothers made us to wear. Fashion wasn’t on anyone’s minds back then; we simply wore what we could find. Can you imagine then having to enter a school where fashion was the key to being accepted? You not only had to wear all the right name brand clothes, but you also needed all the right accessories!

My parents would only allow me to wear “dress slacks” once a week when everyone else was wearing jeans with patches! And the more patches the better! I never could convince my parents to let me sew patches on my jeans, but I did eventually talk them into letting me wear jeans---- on occasion. Needless to say, I’m surprised I ever made any friends, but I did eventually.  

Life was changing for the church in Colossae as well. It was out with the old ways of thinking and acting and in with the new! Only now they would no longer be judged by outward appearances; no longer would they be known as slave or free, Jew or Greek and so on, but they would all be accepted in Christ Jesus! How wonderful that must have seemed at that time, especially to those who struggled up until then to be accepted!  

In this new life we’re to be clothed in love, and our accessories are to be compassion and kindness, humility, quiet strength and discipline. But we’re not dressing up the outside to cover up what's within; we’re to be dressing from the inside out!

Seems rather strange doesn’t it? How do we go about doing that exactly?

I believe it's by letting the words of Christ dwell in us richly, for a man who is rich has far more than he needs, right? So let’s dwell in His word until we’re filled to overflowing.

For what we feed will naturally grow, and what we starve will eventually die away. And what we work to beautify on the inside will never fade away with age!!