Put to Death Your Earthly Nature // Day 20
Colossians 3:5-11 (New International Version)
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 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 practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 11 Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.
Application
The apostle just lays it write out there in this section. There is no sugar-coating or pleasantries attached. He bluntly and boldly states, “Put to death…”
The key to living out what this section is calling us to is found in verse ten. Paul implies that as we put on the new self we must be about the task of renewing ourselves in the image of the Creator. Whenever we rid ourselves of something, we must replace it with something else. If we read between the lines here, we see that as we rid ourselves of our earthly nature, we must replace it with true relationship and renewal of our spiritual nature.
Passages like these are easy to journal with. What are the things in my life that I need to put to death? And, what am I doing to renew my mind and my heart in the process of putting on the new self? (Be specific, no one is reading this but you.)
