Clothed in Christ

“As God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:12).

When my counselor first suggested that it might be helpful for me to identify and articulate what values were most important to me, I was skeptical. I was pretty sure I already knew my values, but I was still struggling with high levels of stress and anxiety. That’s what I wanted help with. I wanted solutions, not simply as seemingly obvious as knowing my values.

But she explained that a life guided by clearly articulated values was one helpful way to find peace and acceptance amid life’s daily stressors. So—after a week of procrastinating—I listened to her suggestion and started making a list of personal values, qualities central to the kind of life I want to live. Qualities like excellence, simplicity, authenticity, courage, cultivating beauty, and having compassion for myself and others.

She was right; it has been helpful. Beginning to identify my core values hasn’t magically cured my anxiety. But when a situation is overwhelming me, I can take a deep breath, glance at that list, and assess the situation with those values in mind. And I can remember that whatever is stressing me, my core values are not being threatened. After all, people-pleasing isn’t a core value of mine. Neither is avoiding discomfort or not making mistakes or being perfect. None of these are even close to being values I believe should direct my life or determine my self-worth and mental health. But when I start running on autopilot, these default pressures—whether internalized from our culture or upbringing or friends or other relationships—can easily take the wheel.

The exercise gave me fresh insight into the ways in which the New Testament tries to help believers experience the transformation of their character to be more like Christ. We might want to think that character change is automatic—instant and dramatic—once we are in relationship with Christ, but the New Testament paints a more complex picture of how character formation happens. Paul repeatedly makes lists for new believers, contrasting the old life with the new life—helping them learn how to identify what qualities are part of the old life and what are part of the new. It’s as if we need a daily reminder, a list, to look at to help us take a step back. To help us identify whether what’s driving us is a destructive value or a quality of the Spirit. Whether it’s drawing us closer to Christ, or further away.

In Colossians 3:1–17, for example, Paul makes a list of the kind of qualities and values that would have dominated their lives before. Things like greed, anger, and deception—a life in which we see each other as threats (vv. 5–9). Then he shifts to a list of qualities that characterize relationships with others in Christ—qualities like “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (v. 12).

I love that here (and elsewhere) Paul describes putting on the qualities of Christ as being like putting on new clothes. It’s as if learning to be re-formed into Christ’s image is as uncomfortable as putting on a style of clothes you’ve never worn before. Everything in you will want to go back to wearing what you’re comfortable with, the habits you’ve formed over a lifetime. But a change in clothes can be worth it, something that changes how you feel about yourself, how you approach your day, and even your perspective on life.

Have you ever put on an outfit you were perhaps a bit self-conscious in because it was almost too nice? It made you feel self-conscious because of just how fun and flattering it was? It might’ve been more comfortable to go back to wearing clothes so casual they made you feel more invisible, but that’s no reason not to wear something you felt great in.

I imagine putting on the “clothes” of Christ through the Spirit is uncomfortable and awkward a bit like that. It’s a “look” that feels almost too good to be true. But because Christ reveals who we’re meant to be—fully human, fully alive—in time, as we get more comfortable putting on those new clothes, we begin to see ourselves and the world differently. We begin to see who we were meant to be and how it feels to be settled and at peace with who God has made us to be. We begin to believe that it’s not too good to be true, but the good news of the future God has for us in Christ.

–Written by Monica La Rose. Used by permission from the author.