As I write this, I’m wearing the new fleece vest my wife gave me for Christmas. It’s nice and warm, just perfect for this time of year. This vest is just right the size–a sleeveless testimony to how well my wife knows me. I have an old vest, but it’s starting to pill and doesn’t look or feel as nice as this new one I received. So, it’s off with the old, on with the new.
The Bible uses this same language off putting off and putting on to address our spiritual lives. In Colossians we read, “you have put off the old self with its practices” (3:9). The change starts from the inside. The first step to lasting change is getting out of those stained garments of your heart. We call this repentance. Off with the old.
Now if repentance is taking off the old, then faith is putting on the new. You have put off the old self with its sin, and, Paul continues, “have put on the new self” (3:10). It’s a whole new “self” that God gives you like a garment to put on.
This is different from trying to change yourself. Hoping in our own efforts is like the boy at the end of camp who puts on the shirt he played in at the beginning of the week. Or as Isaiah says, “all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment” (64:6).
Instead, we need to receive the gift of a clean, new self, offered to us through faith in Christ. We need to be wrapped up in Jesus’ perfect righteousness (Philippians 3:9). Only then can we change our outside to dress in kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and especially love (Colossians 3:12-14). In 2025, will you be wearing anything new?
