What Are You Going To Wear?

What Are You Going to Wear?

Clothe yourself with the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Romans 13:14

You must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

Colossians 3:12

Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God.

1 Peter 3:3-4

It is that back-to-school season for many families, a time when new fall fashions are showing up in the store windows, and it’s hard not to think about getting some new clothes. While clothes don’t tell the whole story about a person, certainly the clothes we wear say something about us—how we approach life, where we want to fit in, what we want other people to notice about us.

Just as we make choices about how we want to clothe our bodies, we also make choices about how we want to clothe ourselves spiritually. We can clothe ourselves with mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. We can cover ourselves with a way of interacting with people on the outside that is evidence that the Holy Spirit is working on us and changing us on the inside. We can clothe ourselves with a gentle and quiet spirit, which is not a particular personality type but a choice to stop trying to always get our own way. And perhaps the most beautiful way we can clothe ourselves is with God’s very presence in our lives. Rather than shouting to the world that we want to fit in here and get our needs met here, we live life welcoming the presence of God into every situation, into every relationship, so that we have a sense of God with us, as close to us as the shirts on our backs.

DISCUSSION STARTERS

What is your favorite outfit? What do you think it says about you?

As you read through the three verses on the left, which set of clothes would you most like to put on today?

In practical terms, how can you clothe yourself with God’s presence?