Colossians 3:9-11 - "Put Off.... Put On..."

Today, Saturday June 12 “Put off…. Put On…” Colossians 3:9-11 ”Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.” For us to be able to practice and do what these verses are teaching us, we must first know and recognize our position in Christ. Because we are risen to a new life in Christ, we seek the things that are above and have a mind that is determined to obey the Lord and His Word. (3:1-4) Then in verse five, we are told to “mortify” or put to death the desires of the “old” life. Paul put it this way in Galatians 2:20; “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Now we are ready to “put away” and “put off” the attitudes and actions that were a part of our old life. We will “put off anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from our mouths and we will not tell lies to others or be deceitful”. Did you notice how we must first take care of the internal before we can take care of the external? The picture that Paul uses here is that of the changing of clothes. If our children come back in the house with mud and dirt on their clothes from playing outside, we don’t tell them to go put clean clothes on over the dirty. No! We tell them to take off (“put off”) the dirty clothes and clean up first, and then “put on” some clean clothes. We must do the same with our sensual and selfish attitudes. Because we are being renewed day by day and moment by moment “in knowledge after the image of our creator” who is pure and holy, we now have both the desire and the power to do this. And notice in verse eleven, it doesn’t matter what our religious background might be, our racial or ethnic background is, or even what our cultural background is! We are all in Christ and He is in all of us! May the Lord give us grace today to “put off” the old and “put on” the new pure life! God bless!