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Colossians 3.1-11
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: ranger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is call, and in all.
ESV
Wow. Verses 1-4 are incredible verses that literally ring in your ears if you let them. Paul issues a challenge of putting our focus on Christ and not the priorities and practices of this world. The challenge is to center our hearts and minds on Christ and letting all the other thoughts and choices flow through Him. What a radical way of thinking and it’s so peaceful and freeing because then my decisions are based on my relationship with Christ and not some other criteria of my own invention or that of our ever-changing culture. Better still, I know that all the stuff I’m doing is going to have purpose and eternal consequences because God often gives back to us the stuff we are doing but now, so those things either become transformed into something amazing as they fall in line with God’s plans and purposes or they fall by the wayside and are no longer a burden for us to carry; win-win.
And as we move through those thoughts Paul points out that there are some things that we must work at ridding from our lives—notice it’s about getting rid of them and not just putting them in the back seat. It’s a PROCESS of transformation. And it seems so obvious that these things need to go but yet we seem to struggle to deal with them. We all have things that we need to put off and let go of, I know I do.
And that imagery that Paul uses is so awesome—putting off the old self and putting on the new. And then what happens? We are renewed in the image of our Creator (Genesis 1.26-27). But don’t miss how Paul frames this—it’s all in knowledge after the image of its creator (verse 10). The expectation on the part of Paul is for us to think and to know the truth of the Gospel, to know our Heavenly Father, His Son Jesus and the Spirit. That’s what we are to know and the relationship that you were created to enjoy. Thinking back to yesterday’s devotional, this is exactly what happens during our times of solitude.
Want to be renewed? Want change in your life? Then work at centering your life on Christ. We can always do some spring cleaning in our lives with our attitudes and our behaviors, but, here’s the problem. It’s not good enough to just put something off because the reality is that we will fill that empty space with something. So unless we put on Christ that emptiness will be filled with something else that will eventually be a problem for us. We need to not only get rid of negative stuff but also to put on Christ and in doing so you will be compelled to remove the old rags and put on some amazing new clothes.
And so I’m forced to ask myself a hard question this morning, “What do I need to put off and how can I center my life even more so on Christ today?”
God bless you as you wrestle with this today!
Have a great and grace filled week and my personal challenge to you is to really take in verses 1-4. Memorize them if you can or at least copy them down and then put them up somewhere where you will read them every day this week!
Know that you are constantly in my prayers.
Scott
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