"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 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, 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."
~ Colossians 3:5-10
Okay, so we're Christians. We're saved. And we confess our sins and pray our prayers and hey, sometimes we even go to church and read our Bibles. But you know what? That's not living the fullness of the Christian life. Beyond the moment of salvation, God continues to shape us and form us to be more like Him. It's a process of separation from sin called sanctification. (Note to theology buffs: we're sanctified at the moment of salvation, but then a process of sanctification follows even that, as we learn to allow the Spirit to guide us.)
In order to become more like God, in order to live a life worthy of our relationship with Him, we must put off the old earthly man and put on the new man. We have to throw away our selfish, fleshly desires and behaviors, but we don't have to do it alone. The Holy Spirit is with us, helping us grow.
So how do we begin to change the behaviors that continue to disappoint God? First, we have to recognize what they are. Of course there are more sins than those listed above, but they make a good representative list to start with.
Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires
I know this won't be popular, but then again, the truth rarely is. Sexual expression is limited to the marriage relationship. Marriage is the only acceptable outlet for shared sexuality. Premarital sex is not okay with God. Porn is not okay with God. Lusting after your beautiful boss is not okay with God. But here's the thing. God's not cruel. He's not out to rain on your parade. He knew what He was doing when He set out these guidelines for us. He created your sexuality and He knows how it functions best. He knows what helps and what hurts.
If your parents gave you a brand new cell phone for Christmas, but you chose to throw it into the swimming pool, the phone wouldn't work right anymore and you would have messed up your gift. Of course, through a purification process (in this case taking the phone to the repair shop), your gift could be repaired, but why go through all that pain when you could have just avoided the swimming pool in the first place? Point being, your sexuality is a gift from God. Don't abuse it. 1 Corinthians 6:18 says that "any other sin that a human being commits lies outside the body; but he who commits fornication sins against his own body." And if you have abused your sexuality in the past, go to the repair shop. Tell God you're sorry and ask for His help in doing better and staying away from temptation. I promise, if you try to do it yourself, you'll definitely mess it up even worse. It's only with the Holy Spirit's help that you can overcome your sinful nature. If we didn't need God's help to overcome sin, then Jesus wouldn't ever have had to die. But we do.
Greed, which is idolatry
Wow. Greed. Aren't we greedy people, as a society? We all know we aren't supposed to be greedy. From our early childhood, we're taught to share with other people and not be stingy. But innately, as part of our sinful nature, we're greedy. We want to get what we want and we don't want to wait for God's timing. Okay, so we know that greed is bad.
But here's the part that floored me. It literally jumped right off the page at me. Greed is idolatry. When we're greedy, we make an idol out of money (or food, or whatever we're being greedy about). How many people in our society serve their employer more than God, or love receiving their paycheck more than they love giving to the Lord? How many are holding back from God what is rightfully his, just so they can watch TV on a bigger screen? When God said not to have any other gods before Him (Exodus 20:1-3), He wasn't just talking about Vishnu or Krishna or Buddha. He was talking about the little gods we set up in our lives, the things we allow to become more important than our relationship with Him: money, cars, houses, our boyfriends and girlfriends, etc. Nothing should come before God. He's 1.
Anger, rage
So anger and rage are bad. They make us look bad, for one thing. But what's so bad about them?
Did you know that the Bible says that if you're angry without a good reason, that's just as bad as murder (Matthew 5:21-26)? This passage also incidentally has some interesting things to say about name-calling, but that's for another day. Getting angry and staying that way just isn't what God expects of a believer.
What if God stayed angry with us for everything we've done to displease Him? He absolutely doesn't, though. He is faithful and just to forgive us when we repent. Our God is a God of love and forgiveness and reconciliation. In the process of becoming more like Jesus, we have to love and forgive and be willing to reconcile.
Malice, slander, and filthy language; do not lie to each other
The Word of God talks a lot about what we do with our lips. Proverbs 12:22 tells us that lying lips are an abomination to the Lord (this means the Lord hates lying). We're told that one day, we'll have to give an account to God of all the idle words we've spoken. If you know me (Lori), you know that I'm quite a talkative person. The idea that one day God's going to hold me accountable for everything I've ever said terrifies me. I'm trying to learn to be more careful about what I say and how I say it, because I don't want my words to reflect badly on my Lord. Obviously, malice (meanness) and slander are out because they hurt other people. Filthy language is simply unbecoming of someone who claims to follow God, since God is totally pure.
Another thing we shouldn't do with our lips isn't mentioned in today's verse, but it's important enough to mention. We're not supposed to take the name of the Lord in vain. That doesn't just mean not saying the GD word, as some apparently believe. It also means not saying "Oh, God" when you're tired of listening to something or "Oh, Lord" when you hear about your friend's latest problem or "Jesus!" when you drop something on your toe. God's name is beautiful and sacred, and we should only use it when talking to Him or about Him. It's not just a stand-in word for when you can't think of anything else to say.
"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"
Part of the Christian life is taking off your old self with its old habits (porn, gossip, gluttony, profanity, whatever) and putting on the new man in the image of God (love, kind words, self-control, sanctity, etc.). We can't do this on our own, of course, but if we ask God, He will definitely help us get ourselves cleaned up.
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