Romans 13:11-14: Changing Your Clothes

Romans 13:12, 14.. "So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light...put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for teh flesh, to gratify its desires."

Each day, we change our clothes (at least, I sure hope we all do...). Though this act is surely a simple task, it gives a great analogy for growing in Christ. The Bible uses the analogy for changing clothes to show how we ought to put off the old and put on the new (Eph. 4:22-24). In other words, just as each day we take off our old, dirty, sweaty, stinky clothing and put on fresh, clean clothing, so ought we to do the same thing in our spiritual lives. We ought to take off what is of our "old self"--that is, our sin--and put on our "new self"--that is, Christ.

Paul speaks of this analogy in Romans 13:11-14 as well. He commands us to "cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." This is truly a command to have all evil be far from us, as we "cast" evil away from our bodies such as we take off our dirty clothes. However, the analogy does not stop there. We must also put on fresh clothing [I feel like I don't need to describe the necessity of this, but I will]. Each and every one of you know that we cannot simply take off our clothes without putting something else on. It's pretty simple. However, so often in Christianity we think that we can take off our sin without putting on Christ. This is one of the most deceitful lies of the devil. In order to fight sin, we must change our clothes from sin to Christ, not merely take off our sin.

So, how are you doing with changing your clothes [I mean this spiritually, but perhaps any teenage boys reading this ought to ask this of themselves physically as well]? Are you in a constant habit of taking off the old and putting on the new, that is the Lord Jesus Christ? Or are you remaining in your filthy, dirty clothing?

Go, and change your clothes.