Are You Wearing The Proper Clothing?
12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony. 15 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. (Colossians 3:12-15)
Every year we go through our closets and drawers to see what clothes we want to keep, what clothes we want to donate to the local thrift shop and what clothes need to be thrown away as I’m sure many other people do as well. We don’t buy as many clothes as we used to but we still seem to accumulate them. When we go shopping, we take into consideration the style, the color, how well it’s made and how it fits. We want to make sure we are getting the best item for the money and that it’s something that can go with the rest of our clothes at home. We must also make sure we have the right clothing for the right season because if we are not dressed appropriately for that season, we could run into difficulty either being too hot or too cold and that could be dangerous.
It’s amazing how much time and effort we all put into what we wear and how we look, making sure it’s the right style, fit and the right seasonal clothing for us. We take such careful consideration when clothing ourselves, yet how much consideration do we take in clothing ourselves spiritually? The scripture above in Colossians 3 directs us to clothe ourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and love. We are then given another very important instruction, “make allowance for each other’s faults, and to forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others” (verse 13). If we are not properly clothed spiritually, how will we be able to forgive others as the Lord forgives us? Instead of being able to make allowance for someone’s fault and forgive them, we would be thinking about the wrong they have done to us all the time and holding it against them.
So there is something we must do. We must look in the mirror and ask ourselves a few questions. Am I able to forgive others? Do I hold other people’s faults against them? Am I able to let an offense go? Am I doing something with the right motive? If your answer is “no”, then you are not wearing the proper spiritual clothing. This doesn’t mean we allow people to continually hurt us and not take precautions, it just means we forgive them as Christ forgives us so our heart will be cleansed and healed. If we think of how many times Christ has forgiven us when we didn’t deserve it, even after we were saved, it brings things into perspective when it comes to forgiving others.
Finally, we must not forget to clothe our self with love which will bind us altogether in perfect harmony, letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts as we are called to live in peace and to be thankful. Wayne Grudem, a theologian, stated the following “Where love abounds in a fellowship of Christians , many small offenses, and even some large ones, are readily overlooked and forgotten. But where love is lacking, every word is viewed with suspicion, every action is liable to misunderstanding, and conflicts abound – to Satan’s perverse delight.”
Take a moment today and see where your heart is at. If you are finding it hard to forgive others, you may not be wearing the proper spiritual clothing or at the very least it may be dirty. Make time with the Lord to confess, repent and seek His forgiveness and then ask Him to help you to forgive others as He forgives you.
14 “If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. 15 But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins. (Matthew 6:14-15)