Putting on New Spiritual Clothes: Discarding the Old Wardrobe

By:  Dale Weckbacher

Scriptural Text:  Colossians 3:1-17

Colossians 3:14-15

¹⁴ Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. ¹⁵ And let the peace of Christ, to which you were also called in one body, rule your hearts. And be thankful.

(CSB)

My wife and I are currently simplifying our lives by going through the things we have accumulated through the years and discarding what we no longer need.  It is amazing how much stuff we can accumulate over the years with us sometimes wondering why we bought something in the first place.  With this thought in mind, we can view Colossians 3:1-17 as taking an inventory of things of the flesh that have accumulated in our lives and replacing them with a new godly spiritual wardrobe.  This post will focus on what to place in the discard pile of things accumulated in our lives. 

Motivation to discard these things requires having a purpose.  In our relationship with Christ that purpose must be a desire to seek Christ and a Godly life (Colossians 3:1-4).  Romans 12:2 reminds us to cut off our conformity to the world and its way of thinking and experience a transformation in our lives through the renewing of our minds.  Just as one can accumulate stuff through the years that we should discard, our minds accumulate worldly thoughts in need of discarding.  With the purpose in mind of seeking Christ and a Godlier life, we must dedicate ourselves to purposeful study of the Word of God and prayer to experience the decluttering transformation of our minds.  We must place these thoughts in the discard pile,

1)      Sexual immorality and impurity (Colossians 3:5) – We live in a sex crazed society with taboos of the past now viewed as main stream in our culture.  In fact, the underlying foundation of the pro-choice movement is one being able to have sex with anyone they want and if a pregnancy occurs, ending it by murdering the baby.  So sex crazed has our society become that even the murder of a baby that is born receives consideration.  With the purpose of seeking Christ and a godlier life, we must place thoughts of sexual immorality and impurity on the discard pile. 

2)      Lust (Colossians 3:5) – The Bible commands us not to commit adultery (Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18).  However, the act of adultery begins with lustful thoughts (Matthew 5:27-28).  Jesus continues stressing the importance of removing, in a figurative way, body parts that cause us to sin (Matthew 5:29-30).  While Jesus was not calling for people to literally poke out their eye or cut off their hand, he is calling for those purposefully following Him to guard against what they look at or what they do. 

3)      Evil desire (Colossians 3:5) – When asked which of the commandments is the greatest, Jesus replied with the two love commandments, love the Lord with all our hearts and loving our neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40).  When one truly lives their life in obedience to the commandment to love their neighbor, they will hot harbor any evil desires against them.  While this may seem simple, it becomes difficult when someone wrongs us.  Therefore it is critical to spend time in study of the Word of God and prayer to experience a miraculous transformation in our hearts.  We need a spiritual heart transplant removing the fleshly heart damaged by the disease of sin, replacing it with a Godly heart. 

4)      Greed (Colossians 3:5) – The root of greed in one’s life is jealousy.  Someone has something we want, and we become greedy in our desire to have it.  While we may not stoop to stealing what someone else has, we can become obsessed with having it with it dominating our thoughts and actions.  Instead of greed for material things, we must develop a greed for the things of God (Psalm 42).

Just as symptoms in our physical bodies may point to a more serious problem, Colossians 3:8 lists symptoms indicating our minds may be ill with the afore mentioned thoughts.  Therefore, we must continually evaluate the state of our mental wardrobe by determining if we are demonstrating the symptoms of, anger, wrath, malice, slander, filthy language, or lying.  I encourage everyone reading this to not only conduct a self-evaluation of their lives to determine if they have any of these symptoms but to also have someone in their lives, they are accountable to that will honestly let them know of any of these things in their lives. 

Next Saturday we will look at the our wardrove (Colossians 3:12-17).