Ever worn the same shirt for days? Man, I’ve got 1 preteen and 2 teenage boys right now, and there are days I have to tell them, “Son, go take a shower and put on fresh clothes. You’ve worn that shirt for like 3 days now.” And sometimes, they’ll even take a shower and then try to put back on that dirty shirt. I’m like, “Dude, that’s gross! You don’t put dirty clothes back on after you shower!” These are definitely boy-dad problems.

Dirty clothes get rank really fast. We need to change them out for fresh clothes.

Apostle Paul in Colossians 3 says we need to do the same thing in our spiritual life. That old life before Christ is like filthy, stinking clothes we need to strip off. Before Christ, we wore garments of sexual sin, greed, anger, slander, and lies. They felt normal then and even nice. Everyone around us wore them too. But these rags carry the smell of death. They mark us as children of wrath, destined for God’s judgment.

But for those of us who are in Christ, when He saved us, He didn’t just patch up and spray cologne on our dirty clothes. He gave us an entirely new wardrobe! Through His life, death, and resurrection, we’ve been “clothed with Christ.”

But here’s the thing: sometimes we like to grab those old, dirty clothes and put them back on. But God calls us to “put to death” those old behaviors.  Strip them off like infected garments and burn them. Throw anger, malice, and lying in the burn barrel where they belong. And then “put on” your new clothes, your new identity in Christ, your Christ-like characteristics, and walk in them.

Beloved, stop digging through the dirty laundry pile of your past. You’ve been given resurrection clothes. Wear them.

Change begins in you!