S142P3 – The fruit of falsehood: a reversion to the old self

Col. 3:5-10

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.  On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.  But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.  Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

The day I decided to give my life to Christ, I saw those two old friends as angels.  They were the ones who asked me to go to church with them, and they opened the door for me to explore this thing called Christianity.  They taught me so much about the Lord and the Bible, and they showed me what the Christian lifestyle looks like.  I followed their lead, and I desired to be as good and holy as they.  Then, as the years passed, both began to stray from this faith and this God.  Slowly but surely, I began to see and here things that were evidence of a slow fade back to the people they were before Christ.  It was clear from how they changed their way of life that their faith was not the same.

We have a command and an expectation to put to death the people we used to be before we came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  This is to be a genuine transformation, and it will be obvious to those who know us.   This change and what it brings should be obvious to us as well.  What we desire and how we live is simply different.  Just as obvious should be when we get off track and start to revert to the people we used to be.  Something as supposedly innocent as that little white lie can be an indicator of this.  It is a compromise we should not make, and we must examine that if we have made the compromise.  We must  recognize that this is a departure from the new self and make the correction because it can be a precursor to more sin.

Returning to deceit as a normal part of life should alarm us no less than our returning to any of the other evils mentioned in this passage.  These sins are signs of one who does not follow Christ.  The scriptures tell us of those things which should follow the believer and show that he has changed, and deceit is not one of them.  If we are to be responsible about our faith, then we need to keep an eye on the small compromises which can open the door for us to go back to living as sinners.  A small lie there and a little deception here can take us right back to that old life.  Father, keep us wise and vigilant to remain honest in all our deeds and words, that we would not go back to living lives marked by sin.