| “But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth” (Colossians 3:8). |
| “Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering … and above all these things put on charity (love), which is the bond of perfectness” (Colossians 3:12, 14). |
| Yesterday I was doing some yard work — shoveling dirt, planting grass seed, laying sod, and other outdoor jobs. When I came into the house, my wife remarked that I looked pretty dirty, and suggested that I should take a shower and change into some clean clothes. Maybe you have had your parents tell you the same thing, if you got your clothes all dirty either working or playing outside. But before I could put on clean clothes, I needed to take the dirty ones off. I could not put the clean ones over the dirty ones. |
| Here in our verses today we are told to put off something, and to put on something. As we have been reminded before, if we are truly saved, we have a new life in Christ — a new life that wants to please the Lord. That new life cannot sin, for it is the same life that the Lord Jesus has. But as we all know, we still have the old sinful nature, and it cannot do anything but sin. It cannot do one right thing toward God. |
| All the things mentioned in our first verse today are connected with our old sinful nature. They are not the only things that come from our “flesh,” which is the old nature; there are many other things, but these are good examples of them. They are like the dirty clothes that I had to take off. We must put these things off, and we can do that with the Lord’s help. We do not have to let the old nature rule our lives, for as we read earlier in this same chapter (Colossians 3), we are dead and risen with Christ. As we get in Romans 6, we can consider ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God (verse 11). Then, when we have put off these things, we can put on the things in today’s second verse. All of these are produced by the new life we have in Christ. Again, these are only examples of what is produced by our new life; there are many more. They are like the clean clothes that I put on, after I had put my dirty clothes in the laundry basket and taken a shower. |
| You and I can put on the things that are produced by our new nature. Then when people see us, they will not see bad things; rather, they will see Christ in us. |
