Put Off to Put On

A friend posted the other day about a competition at AWANA where the kids had to wear as many layers as they could. Some really funny pictures of kids barely able to move were posted. I remember those kinds of contests! 

Do you remember (those of you who experienced real snow as a child) having to bundle up to go play outside? If you were from Ohio this included putting bread bags over your socks before wearing your boots. 

Sometimes we looked like Randy from A Christmas Story…”I can’t put my arms down!!!” And we felt like it too!

In my reading this morning in Ephesians 4, we are instructed to put off the old man which is corrupt, and put on the new man which is created in righteousness.

If you try to put on the new man without taking off the old man, you won’t be able to put your arms down. You’ll hardly be able to walk, carrying around that other person who will do nothing to help you. You may cover him up fully from the outside with layers of stuff, but inside he will still be weighing you down. 

We have to purge ourselves of the old before putting on the new. We won’t know how light Christ’s yoke is if we’re just slogging it on top of an old one. That’s actually a pretty good way to drive ourselves into the ground.

Ephesians 4:21-31 gives us a pretty good list of things to put off.

What do I need to put off today so I can put on the new man?

Ephesians 4:21-32
(21) If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: (22) That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; (23) And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; (24) And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. (25) Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. (26) Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath. (27) Neither give place to the devil. (28) Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. (29) Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. (30) And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. (31) Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: (32) And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.