Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. Colossians 3:12-13

Clothing is mentioned multiple times in the Bible, often in a physical context. Often in Scripture, clothes identify attitudes or actions. Sometimes the clothing analogy is used to describe actions and attitudes a believer must put off and put on. He says in Colossians 3:12, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.“

In our society, typically you can identify someone by the type of clothes they wear on the outside. A businessman will probably be wearing a suit. An athlete wears sporting clothes. A policeman wears a uniform.

But here in verse 12, Paul is not referring to clothes worn on the outside, but clothes or qualities worn on the inside that should mark the citizens of Heaven. Can people tell that you are a citizen of heaven by the attitudes you display? As a Christian, you are a new man, a new woman in Christ; therefore, you can begin to live that way. So, do it! That is the apostle’s exhortation. He notes seven qualities that should spiritually clothe the Christian. These are the positive qualities of Christian living.

The first one is “compassion.” You are a new man, or new woman; therefore, live that way! After that, going a step further, comes “kindness.” The third quality is “humility.” The chief Christian virtue is humility because it is the exact opposite of the worst of sins, which is pride. Thus, we are to put on humility, to think humbly of ourselves. As the apostle puts it in another place, we are to “regard others as better than ourselves.” We are not to consider ourselves in any way as superior to others.

The fourth quality is “gentleness,” a familiar word that is oftentimes translated meekness. Not weakness, meekness! I like the definition that says meekness is “strength under control.” The fifth quality is “patience”. Literally, it is longsuffering, the enduring of another’s exasperating conduct without flying into a rage. It is holding back.

Paul goes on to speak of “forbearance” and “forgiving one another,” and then tells us to wrap them all around with the bond of love. Love ties everything together like a belt or a girdle. As a Christian, you are a new person yourself. You are no longer the old person you once were. You have put that aside already. Treat the past as though you were dead to the past, and be now what God has made you to be.

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SOMETIMES TRUE STORIES

Give God your whole heart.

The Bible uses the word heart to refer to the entirety of a person. It involves our feelings and emotions. But it is more. It is our will. Our intellect. Our conscience.

Jesus said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Matt 22:37).

“All of your heart” means in totality. Your whole life. Your entire purpose and reason for living is wrapped up in Him.

We understand this commitment, when we take our marriage vows, when we say, “forsaking all others….’ That means our whole heart! That’s what God desires. Ken Weliever

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If the trends measured by a recent survey continue, the nation itself is in its sunset years. A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll reveals that Millennials and Generation Z have significantly less belief in the importance of patriotism, faith in God, and conceiving children. And despite the fact that most Americans remain satisfied by the state of the nation’s economy and their personal finances, a majority of respondents are angry at the country’s political and financial classes, worried about the nation’s economic future, and what kind of country they are passing on to future generations.

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“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” —Ephesians 2:8-9 NIV

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QUOTES YOU CAN USE

Realize that God means for you to be where you are.

Worry is a small trickle of fear that meanders through the mind, cutting a channel into which all other thoughts flow.

He who has carried you this far is not going to drop you now.

The devil often overshoots his mark. Peter Cartwright

Faith is to prayer what the feather is to the arrow.; it feathers the arrow of prayer and makes it fly swifter, and pierce the throne of grace. Thomas Watson

We mustn’t doubt in the darkness what God has shown us in the light.

View your current crisis as a faith builder for the future.

The promises of God are flotation devices to keep us from sinking when we come to the waters of affliction.

Many times our problem is this: we judge others by how far they have to go, rather than how far they have come. Ken Whitten

The choices we make determine the direction of your life. Rob Taylor