You might be the type of person who spends a lot of time thinking about what you wear. Or you might just throw on whatever’s clean and not give it much thought. (No judgment here!)
Regardless, for many adults, getting dressed and ready for the day is automatic. No one has to remind us what we need to do. We don’t have to think about buttoning a shirt, tying our shoes, combing our hair, or brushing our teeth. Once you’ve done something enough times, you don’t have to think about it all that much.
But you know as well as I do that wasn’t always the case. When we were children, we needed someone to tell us what to do and what to wear. (Not only that, we even had to be taught the simple act of putting on clothes!) We had to learn to do those things and do them over and over again before they became automatic and instinctive.
Of course, even as adults, we do things that aren’t automatic. They’re not instinctive. They need to be done mindfully and intentionally, lest we forget them.
In the verses below from Colossians, the apostle Paul uses picture language to remind and encourage his readers to do something that isn’t automatic—as much as we would like it to be. And it certainly doesn’t come naturally:
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. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:12-14)
Keep in mind Paul’s audience: Christians who—by all accounts from the rest of his letter to them—were solidly rooted in God’s Word. They boldly professed their faith in Jesus, and word of their love for God’s people even reached Paul and Timothy in other regions on their missionary journeys (Colossians 1:4).
You might think the Colossian Christians didn’t need Paul’s instructions. They were already doing it!
Sometimes we’re tempted to think that about ourselves: I don’t need to hear this again; I already know it. I’m already doing it!
But it’s easy for me to forget.
It’s so easy to clothe myself with the awful opposites instead: indifference, cruelty, arrogance, harshness, and impatience—and over all of those vices, a selfish love for myself binds them all together. That’s what comes naturally. That’s what comes automatically and instinctively. No one had to teach me those things. I knew them from birth—before that even (Psalm 51:5).
The same is true for you.
Despite our many failures and shortcomings, what amazing joy is still ours! How? Our Savior, Jesus, has washed our sins away with his holy, precious blood and has clothed us with his robes of righteousness. And the compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and love—those all flow from him too, who showed those virtues perfectly in our place.
That changes everything for us.
Jesus is why we as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, can clothe ourselves with these virtues. Christ empowers us to live for him every day. His gifts of love are what we get to show and share with the people in our lives out of love for God and what he’s done for us. Those are the challenges and opportunities we face every day living as Christians.
By God’s grace, we get to clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and love. May that be something we never forget. May that be on our hearts and minds daily and carried out with intentionality and purpose. May Christ’s love and forgiveness for us motivate our love and forgiveness to others as well.
Dear Christian, take heart: You are clothed in Christ.
Alex Brown is the marketing and content copywriter at Northwestern Publishing House. He has his Master of Divinity degree from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary and enjoys reading, writing, and spending time in God’s creation.