WEDNESDAY July 17th
Ephesians 6:11
‘Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.’
Before we move into the whole of this verse, I want us to consider the two words ‘Put on’. It is an instruction to do something, obviously in this case to put on the whole armour of God.
There are other occasions where we are told to ‘put on’ something in the scripture, can I suggest that they are those things that are essential for us to be living for Christ, and at times before we can put something on, we must take something off. When I get up in the morning, I don’t go out in whatever it may have been that I slept in, no, I get changed, I put off and then put on. Sometimes when I have done a school run, I have seen parents (sorry ladies, it is usually mums) who have obviously got up late and come to the school in a hurry and they have just bundled a coat or jacket on top of what has been their nightwear. It doesn’t look very good; it doesn’t leave a good impression.
If we try to live for Jesus by putting on without first taking off, we won’t make or leave a very good impression! We will be playing at or trying to be something when our actions, our speech or our behaviour betrays us.
Now, one of the well-known put off before you put on scriptures is in Colossians 3, where Paul talks about putting to death what is earthly in you, he names those things he considers to be earthly, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness, anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk from out of your mouth and lying to one another. Now he hasn’t given a comprehensive list, he is showing us that it means everything that betrays our testimony in Christ, put it off, get rid of it, summing it up in verses 9-10 ‘. . . seeing that you have put off the old self, with its practices and have put on the new self. which is being renewed after the image of its Creator’ Now to take off means we replace it with something else, and Paul continues in verses 12-16 as a starting point, ‘Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness, love and let the peace of God rule in your hearts and the word of God dwell in you richly.’
I am one of those who holds on to certain items of clothing till they are well, worn out! I still have items of clothing that would have been in my wardrobe many years ago, if it fits then it will still do. Sometimes a clear out is needed and the statement might be made ‘why are you still hanging on to that—it needs to go’.
We need to regularly check out what we have put on, or what we keep putting on that should have been got rid of years ago. Get rid of the old and get hold of the new, put off and put on, let us all ensure that we put off everything that would betray the gospel and put on everything that will bring glory to God. Remember, just as I have seen the mum’s who should have put off the night clothes and put on the day clothes, the world although they are ignorant of the gospel will soon point a finger when they see a trait in us that should have been put off. Going back a few lines, I said the words concerning my older clothes, ‘if it fits it will still do’, playing around with the words, let’s not try to do, so that we will fit in, but let’s be different for the sake of the integrity of the gospel.