Time to Get Dressed!

I wonder how many people aren’t changing out of their pajamas these days.  Or even if you are, what kind of clothes are you putting on?  Are you wearing your normal work outfit or are you dressing more comfortably?

What you are wearing isn’t going to make or break the world today, at least your bodily clothes.  But what your soul is wearing today.  That is an entirely different thing. 

Yesterday we focused on God’s promise to clean us as we looked at the following passage: 

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put with you.  And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rule” (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

Today I’ll focus on God’s promise to give us new hearts.  And how desperately necessary that is.  Each one of us was born with a broken and corrupted heart, which is a result of sin in us.  What David declared of himself is also true of each of us: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5).  Theologians call this original sin or sinful nature.  We don’t just do sinful things, but our heart is bent on sinning.  It is our natural leaning.  In order for us to be cleansed then, we need something to change at a heart level. 

What God has prescribed for this deadly problem (remember the wages of sin is death, total separation from the God of life) is to give us a heart transplant.  Our hearts are too far gone.  Reform will not do.  Our heart needs to be totally new.  Yesterday I reminded you that those who were baptized into the name of God joined with Christ in his death (Romans 6:3).  In this sacrament God put our old hearts to death.  So that we would be born again with a new heart that is no longer seeking to please our evil desires but God’s good desires.  We cannot do this.  Only God can do this for us. 

But once we receive this new heart, we will find that we will spend the rest of our earthly lives rehabbing.  I know a man that had a heart transplant.  Some of the details he shared of the recovery make it clear that this is no simple thing.  The same is true for us.  God has given us a new heart.  He promised through Ezekiel to do this and He fulfilled it in Jesus Christ.  And now we rehab.

This is what it looks like.  The Apostle Paul tells us to “put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).  This is a daily reality.  Each day we bring our eyes and ears to the word of God so that we can hear again who we are in Christ Jesus and be renewed.  We meditate on these truths in our minds and hearts.  We remind ourselves that our old self died on the cross with Jesus and our new self lives out of the new heart God gave us.  This is the result of Christ’s death and resurrection and the faith that results in individuals from hearing this good news.

Don’t worry about your fashion statement this week.  Focus on your spiritual outfit.  Focus on Christ.  Remind yourself what He did for you on the cross.  Live out of this new heart with great gratitude because Someone gave us His life so you could have it: Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Thank you, Jesus!  Help us to be clothed in you today!

“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” Galatians 3:27.