Tag Archives: put on

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.

It’s All-out War

Bible Study, , ,

IT’S ALL-OUT WAR

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Eph. 6:10-12).

  1. what a mess we humans have made of this Scripture! Paul has taken pains, in all his letters to ensure that his readers understand one thing. We can do absolutely nothing to save ourselves. All our religious activities including rituals and rule-keeping, even strict adherence to the laws of Moses impress God not one little bit. He swept it all aside as useless and ineffective to deal with the barrier of sin that separates Him from us.

There was only one effective solution to deal with sin – the death of a perfect human being. Since none on earth could be found, He sent His own Son, born of a woman, to take the place of sinful humanity and to die a death He did not deserve in the place of sinners.

The death of Jesus dealt not only with our sin; it also dealt with the enemy who was responsible for luring the first pair into disobedience to God’s one requirement. The devil won the first round by deceiving the woman into mistrusting the love of God. She fell for his lie and dragged her husband into disobeying God’s instruction not to go the route of independence from Him.

Jesus exposed his modus operandi and beat him at his own game by dying a sinless man in perfect obedience to His Father’s will. He cancelled the debt of sin which the human race owed Him, took back the spoils of war – His children, and gave us the power and the freedom to stand firm against the devil in the truth of what He has done.

The problem is that we (and by that I mean the church in the main, led by those who have superimposed their own ideas on God’s Word), have fouled up Paul’s understanding and instruction about conducting this on-going war. We still have the tendency to want to make a contribution to this life we are called to live as followers of Jesus in spite of the fact the He said, ‘Apart from me you can do nothing.’  We have invented our own way of conducting “war” against the enemy.

Firstly, we have misunderstood the site of the battle. We believe that we must fight the devil in our circumstances. When life throws us a curve ball, we immediately blame the devil and take up arms against him. We “resist” him by speaking into the air, as though he is omnipresent just as God is. From where does this idea come? Satan is a created being, not the evil counterpart of God. We “take authority” over him. Where do we find anyone in Scripture doing that? Did Jesus “take authority” over the devil? No! He spoke the truth of the Word.

To make our warfare more effective, so we think, we must “identify the principalities and powers”. We have to know who they are so that we can address them by name. Where are they? In the heavenly realms. We must, therefore, “pull them down” to break their power over countries and regions. We must find out what the “altars” are to which people give allegiance. What a lot of responsibility God has given us to conduct the ongoing war against the devil and his minions. If we don’t, God can’t save the people in those areas from their sin!

Another round of victory for the devil! Another huge distractor to keep us from dealing with the real issues! Since when does God give the church the responsibility to “fight” the devil in the world? Yes, we do have a ruthless enemy! Yes, we are in a constant state of war which many parts of the church has forgotten. But we are fighting the battle where the devil and his legions are not even bothered about.

Secondly, the real war is going on, not out there among the pagans but in our minds. Jesus is taking back the spoils of war. He is winning the willing allegiance of those who believe in Him. He is extending His kingdom, one person at a time, on earth by revealing the truth about God, about us and about His victory over the devil on the cross and by restoring those who believe in Him to His family.

Satan hates what Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, is doing. He works hard to win back those who have recognised the truth, by attempting to reintroduce his lies, to discredit God and deceive His children into doubting His love and goodness and defecting to the enemy once more.

We live in a world which has been thoroughly corrupted by sin. Believers are subject to the same hardships and suffering everyone else in the world goes through. Being children of God is no guarantee that we will escape the effects of sin on this planet. Unbelievers hold God responsible for not intervening. Satan loves to blame God, to undermine His character and to lure God’s children into judging Him and even, if possible, deceiving them enough to lure them back into their old independent ways of thinking and behaving.

People in the world do not have to fight the devil. He already has them in his clutches. Paul is addressing the children of God. We are the ones who need to understand Satan’s strategy and beat him at his own game. Yes, we have a powerful and ruthless unseen enemy. He is clever and subtle and he has no rules but, as Paul triumphantly declared, “We are not ignorant of his devices.” Jesus exposed him and his lies.

Our job is not to fight but to call his bluff! More tomorrow.

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

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3,                                                                              eBook 978-4828-0511-6

Available on www.amazon.com in paperback, e-book or Kindle version, on www.takealot.com  or order directly from the publisher at www.partridgepublishing.com.

My second book, Learning to be a Disciple – The Way of the Master (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing), a companion volume to Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart, has been released in paperback and digital format on www.amazon.com.

For more details, check my website:

http://luellaannettecampbell.com/

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A New Outfit

Bible Study, , , ,

A NEW OUTFIT!

Do not lie to one another, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all (Col. 3: 8-11).

A bath and a set of new clothes changes our image, doesn’t it?

Our lives are like that too. Imagine yourself living on the street for years – nowhere to sleep and nowhere to take a bath and put on fresh clothing. However you lived in your homeless existence, you accumulated the filth and the vermin of the streets and there was nowhere you could go to take a bath or change your clothes. You were doomed to live in your environment of dirt with no hope of even changing your circumstances.

Then someone sees you in your plight and takes pity on you. He drives you to his home in his luxury vehicle, runs a hot bath, sets out soap, shampoo, perfume, a thick, fluffy towel, and a set of new clothes. He leads you to the bathroom and invites you in to clean up.

How would you feel when you emerged from the steamy tub, towelled off and dressed in clean clothing? You would feel like a million dollars! You would have no desire to return to your life on the street, complete with its filth and the vermin that were your constant companions.

Then, on top of that, your compassionate benefactor does the unthinkable – he invites you to become a part of his household – a son, in fact. There is a place at his table for you. He shows you to your own bedroom, complete with a closet full of new clothing and everything you need to live a clean and respectable life. Would you be fool enough to refuse his generosity and go back to your old life of poverty and squalor?

That is what happened to you spiritually when you accepted Jesus’s invitation to go home with Him and ‘clean up’. You shed the filthy rags of your old life; your efforts to live a good life; to earn God’s approval for your attempts to live up to His standards; or even your couldn’t-care-less, happy-go-lucky, selfish, unrestrained, boundary less, anything-goes life.

He took you home to the Father who welcomed you as His lost son. He power-washed your innermost being in His own blood, removing all the fear, guilt and shame of your old life. He clothed you with the spotless garment of His own righteousness. He gave you a place at His banqueting table and a room of your own in His house. He gave you access to all His resources and the right to use them as long as you use them in line with His character and will.

He asks of you only one thing – to live in union with Him so that you can accurately represent Him to a world that does not acknowledge or know Him. You are a new person now, no longer alone and having to fight for an existence. You are part of God’s family, those who have been rescued from their terrible plight, with a new identity -children of God. All of the credentials of your old life no longer count.

‘Now,’ says Paul, ‘since you have been washed, clothed, given a new identity and a new family, live like a member of God’s household. Forget who you were and live who you are, a son or daughter of God. You don’t have to cover up who you were. Your past has been obliterated forever. You don’t have to pretend to be who you are not. You have been fully accepted as God’s child and you are fully loved. Just be who you are, a beloved son or daughter of God.’

What a relief to know that you can just be you because God is working in you! He is renewing His image in you as you get to know Him and learn to obey Him as your loving Abba, papa, daddy. You no longer have to be a homeless beggar, living by your wits just to exist. You are no longer an orphan.

You have a name, a home and an inheritance because you are God’s child!

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is who we are! (1 John 3: 1a).

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.