12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves
with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Colossians 3:12
New life that Christ brings into our lives are good qualities to build our lives on.
We put off the old self and put on the new self. Why?
Because as those who believe in Jesus Christ as the LORD of our lives, we know God has made us in His image.
We want to do our best for the one who made us, sustains us, and gave us His identity.
As Christ followers, we aim to imitate Christ.
This means reading the Bible, but it also means applying what we read to our lives.
Again, we need to remind ourselves we will never reach a state of perfection in this earthly life, but we should always continue to grow and become more and more like Christ.
I like how Colossians 3 explains this so well. I would recommend reading the whole chapter.
The focal verse I chose for today is verse twelve. We are God’s chosen people as the family of God.
God’s family is always growing and welcoming new members who want to live for Christ.
He dearly loves us, and He wants us to clothe ourselves in good character.
This means we are to keep transitioning or transforming into a new person.
Out, with the old in with the new, has been the focus on the Blog for these past few days.
The new, as explained in verse twelve (and many other places in the Bible) is to learn to be compassionate, and kind.
We learn gentleness and patience and we grow in those qualities.
And we learn to grow in humility. The dictionary defines “humility” as a modest or low view of one’s own importance; humbleness.
Personally, I don’t think we are called to think lowly of ourselves, but to be modest and not proud.
Christ made us in His image and we can and should carry ourselves as someone who has an identity that is like no other.
We are worthy because of Christ; God made us to be confident in His love, His care, His leading, His purposes, His Spirit radiating in us.
The quality of humility means modesty, not thinking of yourself as more important than others. It is a spiritual attitude, someone who is not proud,
a person who has a disposition of being humble.
Those filled with humility make the best leaders of all because they consider others.
Now doesn’t that sound a lot better than being puffed up with pride, being arrogant, being impatient and lacking tolerance of other people’s shortcomings?.
The other day, I was getting ready to go somewhere and was focusing on what to wear.
Of course, as God’s representatives, we want to present ourselves in an excellent light.
However, we should be more concerned about what we are wearing on the inside. What is our character like?
What are we witnessing to the world when we present ourselves to others?
Are we clothed with good character, with good qualities such as kindness, gentleness, and humbleness?
Or are we more concerned with our outer image?
God calls us to be beautiful on the inside. This takes work with His grace, helping us.
Anyone can grow in these qualities too as we ask the LORD to help us.
We make it a matter of prayer asking God to change us more and more and more and more into the person He wants us to be.
As a sincere believer, we must never stop asking Jesus to help us change. This change is also called transformation or sanctification if you want to get theological.
We keep growing until God calls us home. And we will never reach perfection until we reach our glorified state in heaven.
The most beautiful compliment a person can give us is to say they see Christ in us.
It’s just an added bonus when that beauty radiates on the inside and the outside as it should.
Let us all be the best person we can be in this life (no, not perfect, but working towards perfection).
Let Christ’s Spirit radiate from the crown of your head to the tip of your heals and the depth and core of your inner being.
To clothe ourselves in beautiful character, as only Christ can give us, we can go forward in life with a positive outlook and a desire to put on the designer clothing of the most creative, exquisite artist ever.
As we walked decked out in our great Creator’s select patterns and custom clothing, we walk in confidence; we radiate joy, and we humbly take on all that God has for us to do for Him in this great big world.
What are you wearing today?