Hosanna Restoration Church

Have you ever found yourself putting off, putting off the old man? We don’t want God to put off answering our prayers, but we don’t want to get in a hurry about making radical changes in our lives. The truth is that we are pretty comfortable with some things in our old man and it is not convenient to put them off. There are a many things in this life that we should put off doing, but lining up with the word of God is not one of them.

What we do not realize is that this scripture implies that entering into a relationship with Christ, puts those things off of us. We start with Him with a totally clean slate. All guilt, shame, and blame were taken by Him and we have the opportunity to walk away brand-new. In fact, when we put on Christ, we are brand new! There is just no place for them. The problem arises from the fact that those desires like to present themselves in order to tempt us. If we say we cannot put them off, we are saying that God has called us to do the impossible and left us without remedy. As always, the remedy is in believing what He says.

In verse 5, God tells us to put those things to death! The power that those things had over us is destroyed, but we alone can actually put those things to death. We end their reign by putting on Christ. We choose the things that God has given us in Christ as weapons that defeat the things that are out to destroy us. When we are wrapped up securely in the blanket of things like tender mercies, kindness, meekness, and patience, the old things are not even a real temptation. The old natural man is no match for new spiritual man.

Of course there is a conspiracy out there trying to keep us from walking in this. Therefore we must be quick to put off the lies of the devil. We must be quick to cast down everything that exalts itself against the truth of God’s word. I know that we hear this all the time. I know that we know this is the truth. But I also know that we often fail to walk in it. We put it off instead of putting it on. Then we put on that we have put it off! We walk around and say amen and then a struggle comes and we say it is too hard.

What is it that we find so hard about choosing life over death? If someone stood in front of us with a gun and said to choose life or death most of us would choose life with no problem. Again we can see why Paul was impressed by the Holy Spirit to pray that we would be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. (Col.1: 9)

God’s word has renewed us in knowledge according to the image of Him who created all things. (vs.10) Don’t put off putting on all that God has for you. Be quick to put off everything that attempts to keep you from Him. Read the book of Colossians and be strengthened.