"But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other...." -Colossians 3:8,9a
Colossians Chapter 3 literally tells us how to live holy. It's like a step by step instruction manual of following God and obeying His commands. It tells us things we shouldn't do. It even tells us what we should do.
Colossians 3:5 "Put to death therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry." Theses are the things in our life that God says are of the "sinful" and the "earthly" nature. These are the things that we are tempted with. We say we follow God, but reading Colossians 3:5, do we have any of these present in our life? What about Colossians 3:8- "anger, malice, slander, and filthy language"... are any of these present in our life? Yes. No matter who we are we have atlease one thing out of those two verses, present in our life.
In Colossians 3:12,13- "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bearing with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another." - This is how God expects us to be. This is how we live holy. We take out the things listed in Colossians 3:5 and 3:8, and we replace them with Colossians 3:12,13.
"And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.''- Colossians 3:14.
Love is the cherry on top of the sunday. When you add it to the list it makes it complete. If we choose to love over all else....then we're ridding ourselves of all the anger, malice, rage, slander and filthy language- these things don't show love, they show evil and hate.
In a recent devotional I read, the author of the book said "Treat everyone as though they were Christ". Try that. Even though the people we come into contact with may not treat us the way Christ would, and they may not be Christ, He can see us and he sees how we treat everyone we come in contact with.
My heavenly Father, I pray that I apply Colossians 3 to my life. That I remove the evil and the hate from me, and I replace them with love and kindness, compassion and gentleness, humility and patience. I long to be free from the ways of the world and to live in the ways that Glorify YOU. I pray that I treat everyone as if they were you. You are always watching and even though I may be wronged it is not my place to return the wrongs. I pray that I continue to seek you and to love you. You put you first above everyone and everything in my life. Change my heart, - I can't do it alone. Amen!
