This Old Life

⁵ Therefore, put to death what belongs to your worldly nature: sexual immorality, impurity,lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶ Because of these, God’s wrath comes on the disobedient, ⁷ and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. ⁸ But now you must also put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. ⁹ Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices ¹⁰ and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator. ¹¹ In Christ there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.

-Colossians 3:5-11 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Let me ask you an important question-and it may be a question that you cannot answer yourself. It's an important question, though, and one that you need to really think about. If you're a Christian, can others see it? Is your life in Christ different than your life before? Can others see the difference? That's a tough question to think about.

Paul says, in verse 5, "Therefore, put to death what belongs to your worldly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolarty." Paul teaches us to "put to death" those things which characterizes our life before Christ. Those sinful things, those worldly things that controlled our thoughts and lives. We must rid ourselves of them because failure to do so will result in them still controlling our lives. Those things Paul mentions, in verse 5, are sin, and, for the Christian, sin has no control over us. Paul provides more things that we must put to death in verse 8-9, "But now, you must also put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander and filthy language from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old self with its practices" We put off the old self, we put to death those things which characterized our lives. Therefore, if we put off something, we must put on something else.

Verse 10 says, "and have put on the new self. You are being renewed in knowledge according to the image of your Creator." Those things which we've been forgiven for must be put to death in our lives, and we must put on our new life in Christ. Since these things Paul listed in verse 5, 8-9 characterize our old life, there are new things that should characterize our new life. We'll talk about that tomorrow.

For now, though, take a look at the list of behaviors that characterize our old life. Take an inventory of your life right now, even today, and see if those things are present. If so, confess them to God, and put those characteristics to death. Think About It.