“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!!