Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth; fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.     Colossians 3:5-7 NKJV

Any time we see a therefore or wherefore at the beginning of a passage, it’s important to know what comes before it. In this case in verses 3-4 Paul said, “For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.” Our old sinful death dies when we surrender our lives to the Lord.

When we are baptized our being submerged in the water signifies our death to a life lived in sin. Just as Jesus gave His life to save us from the bondage of sin and death, we surrender our lives to Him so that we may have eternal life. Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day. When we are raised up out of the water it signifies a cleansing and a new creation in Christ.

We have to let go of our sins. We must intentionally avoid the things listed. Warren Wiersbe explains these things in his book, Be Complete. Fornication describes any type of sexual immorality. Uncleanness refers to lustful impurity connected with luxury and loose living. Passion refers to an inordinate affection describing a state of mind that excites sexual impurity. The person who cultivates this kind of appetite can always find the opportunity to satisfy it. Mr. Wiersbe explains evil desires in this way, appetites lead to action while desires lead to deeds. If we want to purify our deeds and actions, we must first purify our heart and mind.

Then Paul added covetousness and called it idolatry. When we covet it means we always want more. We are never satisfied. This usually leads us to wanting what others have. When we do this, we put the things we want ahead of God. God no longer has first place because we are consumed with these things.

Paul says God’s wrath is coming upon the sons of disobedience. This would be a good name for a biker gang, we all belong to this gang until we accept Christ as our Savior.

Before we are saved, we are disobedient. Salvation should change the way we behave. Only God can truly change us. Our hearts and our minds must be purified. After his sin with Bathsheba, David said, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

I can’t imagine how pleased God must have been with David at that moment. God doesn’t want us to mess up. He knows we are going to but when we do it is His hope that we will repent and return to Him.

If you have been saved and you continue to hang onto the things mentioned in our Scripture passage, you need to so some serious soul searching. You need to be sure you were truly saved. You need to pray to God for forgiveness and ask Him to help you change your ways.

God is not going to give us a pass. We live as sons or daughters of disobedience before we surrender our lives to Christ. This should change, however, once we are saved. We should be a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our hearts should change. This should bring about a change in how we live our lives, how we speak, and how we treat others. It should change our desires from a desire for sinful behavior to a desire to be obedient.

We must go from children of disobedience to children who crave to be obedient to their heavenly Father. We must kill or destroy those desires that come from the heart and threaten our obedience to Him.

He will be glad to help you with that, just turn to Him today.

Have a great day!