Colossians 3:9-10 Do not lie to each other, 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.
We begin today with a little history lesson. This will help us to understand the context from which our verse was taken and what it is really referring to.
The book of Colossians is a letter written from the Apostle Paul to the church of Colossae while he was imprisoned in a Roman prison sometime around AD 60-62. The Colossian church was dealing with a lot of false teachings that blended legalism, mysticism, and paganism philosophies with Christian teachings. Paul had to reteach the church there that Christ alone is worthy to be praised and worshipped, establishing His lordship once more. He also had to remind them that spiritual maturity was not attained through secret knowledge or rituals but from Him and Him alone.
Prior to today’s passage, Paul listed a variety of worldly behaviors that were destructive and needed elimination from their lives. These included things like sexual immorality, greed, anger, malice, and slander – all of which he said were incompatible with God’s Kingdom.
He began the passage we are studying by telling them to stop lying to one another. He then used a metaphor of changing clothing to help them to understand that their behavior needed to be changed. Just as we remove our dirty, worn-out clothing, believers were to discard the former way of life – that list of all of the negative behaviors he had mentioned prior to these verses.
As believers we have a choice to make. We remove the old self, the old practices, the old beliefs and habits, and we choose to put on a new, renewed self that is modeled and patterned after Jesus. And the renewal we experience when doing this is continual, not just a one time thing that happens when we become believers. We are continually being transformed to reflect our Creator.
How does this apply to today? We have the same choice to make. We choose to remove the old self, to turn from sins and turn to Him. We then experience the same continuous renewal that the early church experienced.
Remove the old. Walk away from the things of the past, the things that harmed you and caused problems for you. And embrace the virtues and values of Christ. Be an imitator of God (Ephesians 5:1) and no longer pattern your life after the world or its destructive behavior.
Prayer: Lord, I don’t want to continue in the old ways that have caused me to sin. I want to take off the old and put on the new, being renewed continually by You. Amen
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