Don’t Put Off Without Putting On

In Colossians 3 Pauls describes putting off the old self while at the same time putting on the new. Why is this so critical? Repentance that isn’t followed by obedience can easily lead back to the sin from which you repented.

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.

colossians 3:9-10, ESV

All of the Christian life is putting off and putting on. We put off the old self and put on the new. Putting off the old self is just that, getting rid of anything that isn’t Christlike. Paul has already listed those sins and on Monday we reflected on what those sins are and how to go about repenting of and forsaking them.

In these verses we see both our work and God’s work of putting on. This is how we grow as a follower of Jesus. We put on the new self. We pray instead of complaining. We love instead of hating. We honor, not humiliate. Every sin has a counterpart, a virtue that we can practice instead of the sin that once enslaved us.

The more you know, the more you grow.

While we work at “putting on” God is at work too. We are “being renewed in knowledge after the image of our creator.”

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I will also forget your children.

Hosea 4:6, ESV

This is an austere warning. Israel’s rejection of knowledge of God led to rejection by God! How do we reject knowledge? By ignoring God’s Word. I call this passive rejection of knowledge. Our busy lives forfeit time with God. Lent is a great time to reconnect with God through his Word, and embrace God through his Word.

Secularism, materialism, and the intrusive presence of things have put out the light in our souls and turned us into a generation of zombies.

AW Tozer, knowledge of the holy

We also reject God through outright rejection of God’s Word. We hear his word and disobey it. We hear without doing. This is so dangerous because our hearts become hardened to the voice of God.

Is your heart hard? Confess that. And get into God’s Word every single day. And get God’s word into you.