The McCheyne train (reading plan) just took me through Colossians 3. Significant words for me.
Thirty-eight years ago this month I was faced with these verses:
“But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
As I considered those words as a twenty-something I knew I was stuck in that old self Paul speaks of. I had no means to change. I had been taught the truths of God in regular conversations for almost two months. I had learned that God loved me and wanted to bring me to himself, but that I to come to Him. The Bible has made it clear to me that I needed Him to change and that He would change me. He would empower me to…
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
So, I reasoned, what more do I need to know to receive this free help? This new life? This new standing with God in Jesus?
My conclusion? Nothing more do I need to learn. Christ had done the work. All I had to do was ask.
So I believed.
No fireworks, just me and God: Him hearing and continuing the work he already begun through the man He sent to talk to me.
Like the Philippian jailer who asked “How can I be saved?” I asked God to save me and begin the changes in me. He did, and He continues.
Thus began the journey and thus it continues… in the power of God through His Grace and Mercy.
Thanks be to God.
To the glory of God!
Colossians 3:8-10, 12-14 ESV
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