And over all these virtues put on love

Colossians 3:1-17 (TNIV) -

1 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

4 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived.8 But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

11 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.16 Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

17 And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

My thoughts -

Our selfish, sinful nature doesn't work for us. If it did, we wouldn't be reading scripture right now. We wouldn't be digging into it and trying to find meaning. We wouldn't be trying to understand what the Christian life is like and trying to live it. We wouldn't need to follow Jesus. But we know our selfish, sinful nature isn't working. At some point we realized this and we're trying to find a better way to be. God's grace through Jesus makes it possible. Paul is describing what that life looks like here. Paul has had similar things to say in Ephesians and Galatians.

We have died with Christ to our sinful nature. We don't live like that anymore. Just to remind us what that which we have died to is Paul has a list:

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

Now, we've been having, in the wake of a tragedy, a national discussion about the use of violent rhetoric. Let me be clear about this. Paul is not saying, when he says "put to death", that we should kill OTHERS who do these things. We are not called to be Executioners for Jesus, either physically or metaphorically. We are to put these things to death in ourselves. We are dead to our own sin, and it is dead to us. We are dead to sexual immorality. We are dead to impurity. We are dead to lust. We are dead to evil desires. We are dead to greed. We are dead to anger. We are dead to rage. We are dead to malice. We are dead to slander. And, whether I like it or not, we are dead to filthy language. We'll get into what, exactly, "filthy language" is some other time.

We know our thoughts. We know our actions. We know who we are and what we do. Most of the time we are capable of knowing our own sin. Most of the time we are capable of checking ourselves and seeing where we fall short of the glory of God. We know when we do what we ought not do. We know when we fail to do what we should. We know our own anger, lust, rage, malice, greed, etc. Sometimes we like to indulge our own sinful nature, but often we know when we do this and we know that we shouldn't. We just feel like we can't overcome it and yet, through the grace w have in Jesus we can because Jesus did. We do not have to live any longer as slaves to our own selfish, sinful natures. We have been set free!

So, if we are free, what are we free to do? If we aren't to live in our own sin, what do we replace that with? Is it enough to just not do wrong? If we just lived alone in a room all day not even THINKING bad thoughts would that be okay? Would we be living for Christ instead of for ourselves?

Maybe, instead of stopping "vice", we should replace vice with virtue. See what Paul has to say:

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.

So, we are called then to be compassionate, kind, humble, gentle, patient, forgiving, loving, and peaceful. How do we do this? How do we forgive as God forgave us? God has forgiven so much! One thing Paul says we should do, and my own experience supports this, is to sing. To worship. This is not the first time we've read Paul say this, either.

We try to know more about the will of God. We try to understand. We try to be disciplined, at least I know I do. And these are good things! We should try to know God more and we should try to teach each other what we have learned. But sometimes we also just need to fall on our knees and praise God for all God has done. We need to gather in community and bow down together and sing to each other and to God telling the wonderful deeds of our Creator.

I also love that Paul says that love is over all of these virtues. We are nothing without love. I think worshiping in fellowship with other believers helps us to love each other. I also think serving others helps us to love. Understanding all that God has done for us should also fill us with gratitude and a desire to, in response to God's love, love others. And of course, if you love God and if you love others, sinning against God and sinning against people you love becomes all the more difficult. I still don't fully understand how all of this works but, from living it, I know that it does.