Therefore as God’s chosen ones, holy and dearly loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a grievance against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you are also to forgive. Above all, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.  Colossians 3:12-14 HCSB

Have you ever watched a news report of a SWAT team making entry at a location and one or two guys dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, and tennis shoes?  Have you ever seen military men doing maneuvers dressed in tuxedos? Would you put your bathing suit on to go out and play in the snow? Would you layer with thick clothing, sweaters and a parka to go dive into a pool in the middle of summer? I’m pretty sure you probably answered no to all of these questions. The reason being is that we dress according to what we are doing and what the weather dictates.

Now the thing is that we are not supposed to judge others, but we do. Outward appearance and dress is usually the first thing we notice about someone.  We notice if they are wearing clothes that are ragged or dirty. We notice if they are wearing clothes that appear to be really expensive.  I have even conducted my own little test when car shopping.  I have dressed down in blue jeans and a t-shirt and have walked around the car lot for a while with no one coming out to wait on me.  I have dressed nicely in nice dress clothes and had someone come out almost immediately. People notice what we wear.

When I started out in probation and parole, we had no uniform.  We dressed in casual dress for every day, suits for court, and when performing tactical maneuvers, we dressed in BDU’s or battle dress uniform. When my step son was in the military, his everyday or tactical clothes were called ACUs which I have discovered means army combat uniform.  As Christians we have a combat uniform and we have every day attire.  Today’s scripture passage talks about our ever day attire.  Now we also have battle attire which is discussed in Ephesians 6, but that will be another blog for another day.

What people should see when they see us is compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. They should see us forgiving others as God forgives and above all they should see love.  This isn’t always easy to wear. There are times when we just want to roll up our sleeves and punch somebody. The problem with this, is that we are dealing with someone who is trying to destroy our witness and by going off on them, we allow them to do just that. I’ve been there, done that, and got the t-shirt.

Now some of you really organized people pick out the clothes you are going to wear for the next day and make sure that everything is together. I was never that organized and was really grateful when we went to a uniform of polo shirts and tactical pants. But as Christians, we should be prepared to dress ourselves appropriately each and every day.

So if we start with compassion, we can sort of consider that the underwear of Christian clothing.  You see you must have compassion in your heart.  You must be willing to consider what someone else is going through and be willing to cut them a little slack.  That goes along with kindness.  When we are compassionate it is easier to be kind.  Humility and gentleness and kind of like the shirt and pants or skirt.  These are the things that really stick out when someone meets us.  Patience is sort of like the shoes that we wear, its how we walk and deal with others even when life gets hectic.  Love is the big thing here.  It’s sort of like the jacket that pulls the whole suit together.  When we love, all these other things come naturally.

But the most important thing we must do before we pick out this clothing and make sure that it is clean and pressed, is to realize that we are God’s chosen people. We are holy and dearly loved.  We must dress like we know who and what we are.  We are God’s children.  We are loved by him.  Loved enough that He sent His one and only Son to die for our sins (John 3:16).

So first and foremost, know where you come from.  Know who you are.  Once you understand this, it makes it much easier to dress appropriately.  We are all unclean like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), but praise God through the blood that Jesus shed on the cross we are made clean.  We are washed as white as snow.

Know this as you get dressed for the day and put on the clothes that God provides.  It’s not always easy to wear these things.  The devil is doing his best to splash mud on your Christian attire, but trust God to help you wear it and wear it well!

Have a great day!