Our EStudyBlog group has taken July off from the 30 day read but I continued on my reading all of Colossians daily for the month of July. I want to share a concept found in Colossians 3 verse 12-15. (NLT).
"Since God chose you to be the holy people He loves, you must clothe yourselves with tender hearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Make allowance for each others faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. Above all clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful".
There is a lot packed into those few verses. Stop for a moment and picture yourself wearing a coat that is made of mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and peace. Can you imagine that? We all wear clothing that boasts of a favorite movie, saying or manufacturer. I used to ride a Harley and wore all sort of Harley clothes. What that told those around me was that I rode motorcycles, particularly a Harley. I walked and talked motorcycles everywhere I went. I would think people would look at me and draw many conclusions about who I might be by what I was wearing. We do that with jewelry, shoes, jackets and so on. I think that even reaches to the cars we drive for when we are in them, we are clothed by that car. We portray and exhibit personalities expressed by how we are clothed.
So what if we clothed ourselves with all those wonderful things previously mentioned? What would our attire say to those who saw us? Wouldn't it be great to aspire to be clothed and present who we are by being merciful and kind, humble and gentle, all the while carrying peace everywhere we went?
Maybe we can think of what we want to wear every morning when we get up by reaching into the closet and imagining selecting what we are going to exhibit that day. Of course the goal would be to exhibit all the things mentioned. Let's see, I think I will wear those black pants and my kindness shirt. Then every where we went, I would do my very best to be kind that entire day. Can you picture that? Would that not be a cool thing to do every day. Somedays perhaps I might want to dress up more and put on my tie of gentleness along with my kindness shirt. I think we could put together some very nice outfits!
We are then reminded that the Lord forgave us so we need to forgive others. We can be clothed in a nice outfit made of kindness, humility and gentleness, but don't you know that unforgiveness will always show up as a stain on that outfit? We have got to become better at forgiving. Thinking back on times when I have found it hard to forgive someone, that unforgiveness seems to always be a partner of pride. Think of a time in your life that you could not forgive someone. Now think about the real offense committed against you. Was it really so bad that it was unforgivible or was it your pride wanting to keep ypou offended and angry? Over the years I have learned that such things are most often not so bad that I have to carry anger around with me for long periods of time. Most times such things have been a simple matter of wanting to stop letting my pride tell me "how dare they" and simply making a decision to forgive.
Now, the verse that encouraged me to write this. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. Did you catch that? What we are seeing is that peace, gentleness and so on are all great things and things to aspire to wear daily yet, the greater thing is to be clothed in love. Can you picture that? Can you picture getting up every morning, picking out an outfit then standing in the mirror and imagining finishing off that outfit by sliding on a coat of love? If you clothe yourself daily with love, all the other things will happen along with it. If you love, you will be kind, humble, gentle and so on. The very cool thing is that when you clothe yourself in love you will start the process of binding together with others who live clothed in love. If we all start living in love, we as a people will be bound together in perfect harmony., not just ordinary every day harmony, but perfect harmony. What is so exciting is that that concept is just what Grounds for Love is about. If you look back at the home page you will see that we believe that we can change the entire world by loving one another. This scripture says the same thing. If we cloth ourselves with love all of us will be bound together in perfect harmony. Is that not the greatest thing to want to be and do? If we could all set aside all the silliness of life and simply love each other, we would find ourselves living in a world of harmony, perfect harmony.
Come on, we can do it, I know and believer we can. It all starts with a decision to do so. Look, we have to pick out something to wear every day, so "choose" to wear some love. Let people know what you are all about by how you act toward others. Chooses to be clothed in something bigger and more important than that Harley shirt. Clothe yourself in love.
Doing so will bring harmony and harmony will bring peace. Last, we are called to live in the peace that comes from Christ and to be thankful.
What great things to think about first thing in the morning. What are you going to put on today? What do you want to clothe yourself in the rest of your life? Maybe it is time to go through your closet and start throwing out some of those old outfits. Outfits of anger, jealousy or hurt. Now you have room for new outfits, outfits of love, gentleness and patience. We all love the idea of getting a new wardrobe, don't we?
Do you have the desire to live in harmony or discord? Do you think you would like to live a life filled with peace? The first step to living lives filled with such wonderful things might be as simple as making a decision about what you will wear each day. I hope we all choose love.
Choose to be clothed in love today. Go out there and love somebody. Everybody.