Already Dressed

DAILY DEVOTIONAL — "ALREADY DRESSED"

Leading Into Tonight's Colossians 3 Bible Study

Ekklesia Christian Life Ministries

Scripture: Colossians 3:1-3 (NLT)

"Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven... Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God."

Have you ever gotten dressed for the day, forgotten what you put on, and caught your reflection in a window hours later and thought, "Oh right, that's what I'm wearing"? Your identity is like that some days. You know it's true. You just forget you're already wearing it.

Paul isn't writing to the Colossians to convince them to become new. He's writing to remind people who are already new that they forgot what they have on.

Colossians 3 opens with a fact, not a suggestion: "you have been raised to new life with Christ." Past tense. Finished. Before Paul ever tells you what to do, he tells you what already happened to you. Your old self, the one ruled by shame and old appetites, died with Christ. Your real life, your truest self, is described as "hidden with Christ in God." Hidden doesn't mean absent. It means secure. Valuable things get hidden, not worthless ones.

Today you're not trying to become someone new. You're trying to remember who you already are before you walk back out into a world that will try to hand you an old outfit.

Before you look at your phone this morning, before the day's noise starts telling you who you are, say this out loud: "My real life is hidden with Christ. Today I set my mind on that, not on what's down here trying to define me."

Notice one moment today when an old feeling shows up: anger, comparison, insecurity, lust, control. Don't fight it yet. Just notice it and name it: "That's the old wardrobe. I don't wear that anymore."

Tonight's Bible study picks up exactly here, moving from verses 1 through 4 into the practical "take off, put on" list Paul gives in verses 5 through 17. Come tonight ready to talk about what specifically you noticed today. That noticing is the raw material for tonight's whole conversation.

Father, before this day gets loud, remind me who I already am in Christ. I don't have to build a new identity today, I get to remember one You already gave me. Let my mind stay set on what's true, even when today tries to hand me something old. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Link to Tonight's Bible Study Lesson

LoveUMoreThanUKnow,

Pastor Stephan Kirby