Tag Archives: earthly things

CHANGE YOUR CLOTHES

Christian Life, ,

Colossians 3:5, 7, 10 NLT
[5] “So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world….
[7] You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world…
[10] Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.”

Change your clothes! You used to wear selfishness as your garment of choice. You used to pander to every desire of your evil nature. Now you have a new nature. Christ lives in you, and He has a change of clothing for you…righteousness, His gift to those who believe in Him.

Your old clothing reflected who you were, self-aware and self-absorbed.

Colossians 3:7-9 NLT
[7] “You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. [8] But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. [9] Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds.”

You have a new nature now. Wear the garments of righteousness that show who you are.

“Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.”

What does it mean to “put off” and “put on”?

The theory of salvation, all that God has done through Jesus before the beginning of time, must have a counterpart, actively responding by faith to the promise of transformatiom. The Bible says, God has done everything to bring you back into fellowship with Him. Your part is to believe and live out what God has done.

David understood the process.

Psalms 116:12-13 NIV
[12] “What shall I return to the Lord for all his goodness to me? [13] I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.”

Living out means refusing to do, saying no to what our old nature demanded. “Putting off” means choosing not to lie, steal, or act in any way that reflects who you used to be. It’s deliberately discarding the old “clothes” of sin.

Jesus made this possible by forgiving our sin and putting His own nature in us.

“Putting on”, means choosing to live out His nature in us. Love is the wrapping in which this gift of righteousness comes to us. Every thought and action that expresses His love is the “clothing” we now wear.

Why is it imperative that we change our clothes? We must live out the righteousness Jesus gave us as a witness to the transformation the Holy Spirit is working in us. This is the only evidence that we have that we have been supernaturally born into God’s kingdom.

Romans 8:12-14 NLT
[12] “Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. [13] For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. [14] For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.”

Not to put to death, not to put off the old clothes of the flesh is to deny that we are God’s children. The evidence that we are members of His family is real only as we are being recreated in the image of our Creator.

Colossians 3:10 NLT
[10]”Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him.”

The tragedy is that many people think that answering an altar call or praying the “sinner’s prayer” is evidence of their salvation. It doesn’t work that way. The real evidence is a transformed life through the work of the Holy Spirit in them.

Remember, Paul is writing to ex-pagans who were right up there with the best of them when it came to living out their old nature.

Colossians 3:7 NLT
[7] “You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world.”

Paul urges them to understand that they are now part of a new species, not just participants in another religion. They are a new creation in Christ Jesus, citizens of a new realm, members of a new family made up of transformed people from every group on earth.

Galatians 3:27-28 NLT
[27] “And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. [28] There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Colossians 3:11 NLT
[11] “In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.”

This union with Jesus cut us loose from living the old way. Jesus gave us the power to say “No,” and make “no” happen.

1 John 3:9-10 NIV
[9] “No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. [10] This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.”

So, let’s live out who we are, in the power of the who is in us by His Spirit, Christ in us, the hope of glory.

HISTORY OR HIS STORY?

Bible Study, ,

HISTORY OR HIS STORY?

“‘How can this be?’ Nicodemus asked. ‘You are Israel’s teacher,’ said Jesus, ‘and do you not understand these things?’

“‘Very truly I say to you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony.

“I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven — the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in Him.'” John 3:9-15 (NIV).

Such familiar words that we can almost recite them from memory! But what do they mean?

Although Nicodemus was a prominent teacher in the ranks of the religion scholars and was familiar with the Word of God, it was obvious to Jesus that he did not understand the truths he was teaching. It had been so long since God has spoken and actively intervened in the affairs of His people that Nicodemus was essentially teaching history.

Jesus must have startled him by saying that, although He was also a rabbi, He wasn’t teaching history; He was teaching truth from experience. He was speaking about reality because He had been in the heavenly realm; He had come from there and was relating what He knew, hence He could speak with authority.

How does one move from history to experience? Once again, John brings his readers back to the main theme of his gospel — believing in Jesus. Nicodemus had nothing more than sterile religion to pass on to his learners. He needed something much more to have access to the “heavenly things” of which Jesus spoke.

Eternal life is not just unending life somewhere out there when we die. It begins here and now with a transfer from the dimension of existence in a purely self-dominated and soulish way to a dimension of living in union with God, experiencing His presence and His power to live unselfishly for other people and to submit lovingly to His will and purpose.   

How can this transfer happen? Jesus put it in a nutshell and in the imagery of what was familiar to Jewish readers — Moses and the snake. This was history to the Jews and to the Gentiles who had embraced the Jewish religion. They knew about Moses and the snake.

During their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, the children of Israel were familiar with the inhabitants of the desert — the “nasties” of that kind of terrain. But God protected them from their deadly neighbours until they infuriated Him so much with their complaining and rebellion that He withdrew His protection and let the fiery serpents loose on them. Many of them perished from the poisonous bites until the people cried out in desperation.

God instructed Moses to fashion a model of a snake out of bronze and lift it up on a pole. Whoever looked at the snake and trusted God for healing would be saved from the effects of the snake’s venom.

‘This, Nicodemus, is the key to understanding what I am telling you.’ The key to their healing lay in the condition and the promise — if they looked at the snake and believed what God had said, the miracle happened. They were rescued from death and given back their lives.

Jesus would also be “lifted up” on a wooden stake for everyone to see, but not everyone would experience the life He promised. Only those who gazed at Him with faith in His promise would make that transfer from death to life. Something supernatural would take place in their spirits. They would literally “come alive” to God; they would have a spiritual awakening to a dimension of living they have never “seen”, a new life thrumming with God, everywhere. 

That’s what changes history to His story, and our story.

Acknowledgement

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.