Don’t Put On Your Old Clothes

I remember a few years ago, as we moved into our new house, we wanted to make some improvements. One of those improvements was to add insulation to the ceiling of the house and to avoid heating the great outdoors. We rented a machine to blow insulation in.

With this machine, you basically take a compressed bag of insulation and throw it into a grinder that separates it and blows it through a long tube. Think of something like blowing dust through a leaf blower.

This was going to be a team effort with our family.  Holly, Becca, and Blake cut open the bags and fed the machine. I was going to handle the hose and spread the insulation in the attic. It was a hot, sweaty, dusty mess. by the time I finished, I was soaked from head to toe in sweat.

I climbed down from the hot attic and I began to take off the layers, my mask first, hat, then I began to clean myself up. I peeled off my sweat-saturated clothes that were clinging to my body, threw my shirt on the garage floor and it hit the floor with a splat.

I jumped into the shower and felt the water rinse off the dirt. It was everywhere, in my nose, hair, and ears.  But once it was washed away I felt great. It was like I was a new man. What a transformation!

But imagine after going through this thorough cleaning process and then putting my old soaking wet with sweaty, dirty, smelly clothes back on! Sliding on my smelly, wet socks.  The feel of the wet shirt as it pulled down over my face and chest. Putting on my drenched jeans…Gross… We couldn't imagine why anyone would ever choose to get back into the sweaty, smelly, dusty clothes after they had been cleaned up. It doesn’t make sense.

But this is what a lot of people do who place their faith in Christ. Ok, we don’t literally put on our smelly and wet clothes, but we put on our old clothes of sin. We clothe ourselves with sinful behavior that doesn't fit with our purified identity in Christ. At the moment we place our faith in Christ, we have been completely cleansed and we are a new person in Christ. We are dead to sin, alive in Christ, hidden with Christ, and completely forgiven (Colossians 3:1-4).

Paul says in Colossians 3:5 Therefore, put to death what belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry.

Don’t put on your dirty clothes again!