“But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.”
If we think “Put to death”, “rid yourselves of”, “take off your old self” all sound like a lot like telling someone to “Just STOP that” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BjKS1-vjPs, then we have missed the truth of the gospel. We have missed the truth that those of us who have been reborn thru faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, “have been raised with Christ”, and are “now hidden with Christ in God”, and “have put on a new self”. The truth is that for a Christian, the heart work is being done for us, we are now free to change our outward behaviour, and we are called to cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit within us, by replacing the old behaviours with the new. Some of us like to go to clothing stores and try on clothes, look in the mirror and see how we look- some of us even experiment with several new looks. Let us today put on these clothes of righteousness – these acts that we are now free to perform, these attitudes that we are now free to experience. Watch these “clothes” transform our lives, our relationships and our world.
No comments:
Post a Comment