Colossians 3: 1-11….The to be ‘put-offs’.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

Comment: Having clearly stated what Jesus has done for us, Paul lists what has happened to us from God’s view point when we have come to believe in Jesus. We have been raised from the death which is part of being a sinner to being a living child of God. Therefore, he challenges us not to waste our time on the evil things amongst which we live but to set our minds on much higher, Christ centred things. This doesn’t happen without our effort, we are told to kill our base desires. He lists them and says ‘and these were all a part of your lives in the past!’ But now do away with sexual immorality, bad attitudes such as anger, racism, malice. Stop lying and talking filth. Reject your tendency to lift up your own culture and your ways above those of others, for now ‘Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.’ Tomorrow we get the replacement ‘put-ons’.

We must be very careful to differentiate between what is good and what is bad. As an example sex, as practised within God’s restrictions is not what is meant, but perversions are evil.

Prayer: Teach me to live by Your culture and Your ways. And thank you that there are many fascinating shades of it!