PART I
I remember so well the time when God implanted the truth about being properly dressed in my heart. It came as a discipline in my own life, and I can tell you that to this day I still practice this discipline of dressing the inner person, and it has been life-changing for me. It’s something we can remember and relate to, and so I want to share it with you, praying that God will use it in your life, as he has and does in mine.
The wardrobe that I want to talk about is found in Colossians 3:12-15:
So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful.
These are the special garments intended by God for each of us to wear, and as Christians, we have a unique opportunity to be lights in our working worlds, in our families, and everywhere we go by learning how to wear these beautiful clothes. Let’s look more closely at these inner garments which we need to “put on.”
COMPASSION – The first garment is compassion, which can be described as a deep feeling of sharing the suffering of another. You know, it’s not hard to find suffering people these days. There is mental, physical and emotional suffering everywhere, and undoubtedly you have suffering people all around you where you work and live. Are you aware of their suffering? Do you care?
It seems to me that all too often I am quick to blame people and judge them without stopping to think of what they have endured, or why they are the way they are. That’s especially easy to do on our jobs. We judge our fellow-workers without really understanding their suffering.
Don’t you think compassion would look good on your job? If you wear it, you won’t be so quick to condemn or judge. You’ll give people room to make mistakes. Your prayer list will get longer, because when we care about people, we pray for them. Do you pray for the people you work with? Start praying for them, and watch how much more compassionate you feel toward them. Yes, indeed, we need to wear compassion on our jobs.
KINDNESS – Kindness is the second garment in the closet of a well-dressed Christian. Have you been too busy to wear any kindness lately? Do you take it on and off, depending on your mood, or who you’re with? Sometimes we are least kind to the people nearest to us. We seem to forget that kindness is important on our jobs, with those people we work with every day. It seems we save our kind behavior for people we don’t see very often, as though it were in short supply. God has plenty of it, so wear it to work every day. You’ll look terrific!
HUMILITY – Third in this special wardrobe is humility. The world system often gives negative connotations to humility, as though it were an undesirable characteristic. It is often viewed as weakness or wimpy. Rarely do we think of humility as a necessity for getting to the top in the business world.
But that’s an incorrect assessment of true humility. The Bible defines humility as a lack of pride, and an awareness of who we are in comparison to who God is. God hates pride; it’s the number one sin at the top of the list of things that he hates. If your assessment of yourself is inflated, and you have a “know-it-all” attitude, you’re not wearing humility, and you’re missing an important outfit in your wardrobe.
GENTLENESS – And then we come to gentleness. I am always overwhelmed with the amazing gentleness of Jesus Christ. Oh, how we need to wear his gentleness to work every day. We need that gentle and quiet spirit, which the Apostle Peter tells us should be our adornment, and which is precious in the sight of God.
Are your words tough or harsh on your job? Do you have a sharp tongue or hasty actions that pierce and hurt people before you realize what you’re doing? Then you undoubtedly need to wear more gentleness. Gentle answers turn away anger, we are told in Proverbs 15:1, and a gentle spirit brings peace to chaotic situations. It is a precious garment, and everyone will love it on you!
PATIENCE – The next garment we find in this wardrobe for the inner person is patience. Patience can be defined as the capacity to calmly endure. I have to chuckle when I say that, because if anything is the opposite of me, it is calm endurance. This is a really difficult garment for me to wear; it just never seems to fit—always a little too small for me.
And yet God put it on his list, and he didn’t make any exceptions, not even for me. You know, I’m learning that God can make this garment fit me—or rather, make me fit this garment—if I am willing to let him. I’ve asked him to help me put on patience, and since I’ve started asking, he has put me into situations that have taught me more about how to be patient. I’m learning; it fits better now than it did a year ago. If I can wear patience, so can you.
TOLERANCE – The next garment is “bearing with one another”—or tolerance. Tolerance is that beautiful quality of allowing other people to be different from you, even different from what you think they should be, and loving them and appreciating them for who they are. If you wear tolerance to work every day, you won’t be upset when people don’t do just what you think they should do. You’d allow them more room for error. You’d bend over backwards to understand where they’re coming from, and to give them more time to grow and learn.
How often I expect others to track along with me—to march to the same tune that my band is playing. And God has to remind me that he deals with each of us individually. Just because he is teaching me one lesson or guiding me in one direction, doesn’t mean that all my friends have to be there with me! Tolerance is the garment that allows us to “bear with” others, whatever their circumstance.
FORGIVENESS – The word itself is beautiful. And, oh, what a wonderful garment to have and to wear. It brings so much happiness to others when we’re able to forgive. God tells us to forgive others as he has forgiven us. That’s pretty powerful forgiveness, isn’t it? Are you harboring an unforgiving attitude in your heart toward someone? Even if you have been mistreated, you need to put on forgiveness. Even if you haven’t been asked to forgive, you need to wear forgiveness. And even if you’ve forgiven them for the same thing time and again, you need to keep forgiving them.
You’ll be amazed to see that in forgiving others, you relieve yourself from an immense burden of bitterness and resentment. And you experience God’s forgiveness for you in greater measure, so you rid yourself of guilt you’ve been carrying around. Forgiveness for others reaps enormous benefits for you. Put on forgiveness; it is lovely.
PEACE – is the next beautiful garment in God’s wardrobe. Are you peaceful? Or do you fret and worry a lot? Is your life frantic? Perfect peace comes by fixing your mind on Jesus Christ. Have you tried any peace on lately? It is the most wonderfully comfortable garment in the whole wardrobe. Once you try it on, you will want to wear it constantly.
THANKFULNESS – is absolutely essential in your wardrobe if you want to be a well-dressed Christian. Do you complain a lot about what you don’t have or can’t do or where you are or who you are? There usually is lots of complaining going on in most any job environment. Are you a part of that complaining? If you wear thankfulness you won’t complain. You’ll be too busy counting your blessings. Thankfulness is very attractive. When you wear it you have a certain magnetism; people love to be with you. It makes you a positive person and it cures depression.
Have you been wearing thankfulness to work? It is a magical garment, because as we learn to give thanks in every situation, we discover that our heaviest burdens grow light and easy.
LOVE – And then as the crowning touch to all the other garments in this unique wardrobe, we need to wear love. Love is the golden chain of all these virtues. It is the finishing touch that brings the whole wardrobe together and blends every garment into a unified appearance.
Love covers up blemishes; it fills in the missing gaps, and mends the frayed edges. God’s love, worn in our hearts, motivates us to want to wear all these garments.
So, here they are, God’s wardrobe all prepared for you: Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, peace, thankfulness and love. You’ve heard it said that the clothes make the person. Well, whether or not that’s true with our physical clothes, it certainly is true with this special wardrobe for our inner persons, which as Christians we are told to “put on.”
You know, this wardrobe is totally within your reach, you can afford it, it will look absolutely marvelous on you, and will assure you of being a success in your Christian walk. If you wear this wardrobe on your job every day, you can be certain that you will be the best-dressed person on the job!
But how in the world do we do that? It’s not difficult to talk about these garments, and it’s easy for me to encourage you to wear them. But if you’re finding that they just don’t fit, or you don’t know how in your real everyday situation to be patient or kind or gentle or thankful, then how do you change? How can you put on these beautiful clothes that every Christian should wear?
