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Day One
Did you know that there is a special wardrobe designed just for Christians? I want to talk about what the well dressed Christian wears.
Yes, you heard me right, Christians need to wear a specialized wardrobe—one that sets us apart from others and identifies us as people who love and serve Jesus Christ. I don’t mean a uniform, or some strict dress code. The wardrobe that I’m talking about is found in Colossians 3:12-15.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
Let’s look more closely at these inner garments which we need to “put on.”
The first garment is compassion, which is simply sharing the suffering of another. Undoubtedly you have suffering people all around you where you work. One way to show them compassion is simply to pray for them.
It seems to me that all too often I’m quick to blame people and judge them without stopping to think of what they have endured, or why they are the way they are. When I put myself in their shoes, I find that compassion comes naturally.
Don’t you think compassion would look good on your job? When you wear it, you won’t be so quick to condemn or judge. You’ll give people room to make mistakes.
Kindness is the second garment in the closet of a well-dressed Christian. Sometimes I get too busy to be kind—do you know what I mean? And then sometimes we are least kind to the people we’re with the most. We really need to show kindness to those people we work with, those people we’re with every day. God has plenty of it, so wear it to work every day. You’ll look terrific!