Week 16: Day 3

Intro: Hey everyone I’m Nathan and this is orbit where we give you daily devotionals on how to live a God centred life. Today’s passage is from Colossians 3 and is all about putting on the new self. I’m going to read verses 9 and 10 and then skip to 12.

Bible: 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.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Thoughts: Recently, I’ve been checking out this Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo. Now you may be thinking, “tidying expert” how can you be an expert at that. Trust me, look her up, she’s next level.

She preaches that you should only keep the things in your room that gives you joy and arrange your room in such a way that it gives you a sense of joy. So, I went through my wardrobe and did a clear out of all the multitude of Adidas jumpers and overly tight jeans that I’m way too cool to be wearing now, and got rid of them in an ethical way, just dumped them with my brother.

This passage is asking us to do a similar thing with our lives, to do a declutter of our spiritual lives. To get rid of the old things that were part of the old person that you were, or that you would’ve been without God, and put on the new self which has been won for you in Jesus. This new self that has been won for us is not a fake self, it is the self that we were always meant to be, the one that we will be fully conformed to when we see Jesus face to face.

And it’s exciting when we look at this person that God wants us to be; compassionate, kind, humble, patient. But it can also be daunting, to try and be all these things that we can often feel that we are not, it sounds all well and good to just put on the new self like a new pair of jeans, but how do we actually do that? Well, this is a lifelong journey, but let me give you two quick points that can help you on your way.

Well first of all it’s helpful to recognise that this process of taking on the new self and putting off the old one is happening at the same time. We can’t put on certain parts of this new self until we’ve taken parts of our old self. For example, it’s hard for us to put on peace when we justify and still hold on to a spirit of anger. But at the same time, we can’t wait to fully take off the old self before putting on the new self.

Secondly, it’s important to know how the father views us throughout this process, this is not us putting on the best version of ourselves to be loved by God. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, the passage says, “as those chosen of God, holy and beloved”. We’re already chosen to be transformed into people that reflect Jesus, we’re already loved and we’re already holy. It’s from that place of knowing how clean he has made us by the blood of Jesus, how much he deeply loves, that we’re energised and motivated to put on the new self that Jesus has one for us.

Prayer: Father thank you so much that you put your Holy Spirit in us, thank you that you’re conforming us to the image of Jesus. Lord Jesus help us to put on this new self and to enjoy the fruit of your spirit, would you help us to do it from a place of your love and by your strength, in your name. Amen

Silence: There's now just a few moments of silence for you to pray, reflect on these ideas, or simply sit and be still.

Action: Ask yourself is there anything that you consider core to your identity that is probably of the old self? Is there anything specifically of the new self that you find hard believing you could be? Write that down. Then pray through these things that God would be able to change you over the coming years in this seemingly ‘impossible’ way and watch what he does.

Outro: That's it for today's Orbit. Thanks so much for joining us - we'll be back with another reflection tomorrow.