“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” – Colossians 3:12
This is what our world and this nation desperately needs right now: millions of Christians acting like Jesus every single day!!! Paul commands us to put on the character of Christ in all our daily interactions. As followers of Jesus, we must not be content with merely having deep or enjoyable worship on Sunday mornings. We’re actually called and commanded to imitate Jesus – to be like Him in our thoughts, words, and actions.
Many of the present-day difficulties of the Western church stem from a failure of Christians to think, speak, and act like Jesus. Friends, we need to get back to basics. If Jesus is your Lord, act like Him!
We must be trying, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to be compassionate toward everyone, kind in the face of unkindness, humble (i.e. not arrogant, not a know-it-all, not holier-than-thou), absolutely firm yet gentle and non-combative in our firmness, and endlessly patient with others as Jesus is endlessly patient with us.
These are the things we must fill our hearts, minds, and mouths with. To make room for them, we’re told in verse 8 to completely get rid of anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk. At all times. In all places. And we can’t lie. Not on purpose and not accidentally because we failed to spend a minute fact checking the latest outrageous social media post we wanted to repost/retweet.
This is a very hard challenge, but if we’re faithful to do it, we will be obedient to our Lord and those who don’t know Christ will see and hear Him through us!