The Power of the Positive

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Colossians 3:12

How do you get up in the morning? Some have great difficulty. Some can leap out of bed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to face the day immediately, but others drag along for a couple of hours, needing a cup of coffee to get them going. It is reported that Albert Einstein once said, The problem with the speed of light is, it comes too early in the morning! I once heard a preacher confess before a group of pastors, I don't even believe in God before 10:30 in the morning! No matter what time you get started, however, Paul's word is, clothe yourselves. When you get up, deliberately put on these qualities of life. That is the argument throughout this whole letter. You are a new man, a new woman in Christ, therefore, you can begin to live that way. So do it! That is the apostle's exhortation.

There is much confusion among believers at this point. Many seem to find great difficulty putting on these positive virtues as they begin their day or throughout the day. That is probably because they have never thoroughly understood, or perhaps have not practiced, what the apostle said earlier: Put off the old man. Learn to recognize the characteristics of the old life: the self-centered, praise-loving, prideful flesh in every one of us. Reject that! Put it off! Do as Paul says in the previous paragraph: Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature. Treat it as though you are dead to it. That is Paul's argument in Romans 6: Consider yourselves to be dead, indeed, unto sin. And you can, because God has given you a new basis of operation!

Advocates of positive thinking or possibility thinking tell us, Put on these positive qualities. Think positively. Face the day with courage and confidence. These folks make a strong plea to do this. But the problem with their message is that they fail to make the careful distinction that Scripture makes between the old man and the new man. These positive admonitions are not addressed to the old life that is to be put away. There is a negative quality of living which precedes the positive. We must reject this appeal which comes to us so easily from our past experience. It still haunts us as new creations in Christ. We still, all too easily, play over in our minds the old movies of the past. But this is to be put aside. If we do that, then we can respond to these exhortations to be what God has now made us to be. So, when you start your day, begin this way. Put away the old reactions and then clothe yourself — put on deliberately, in your thinking — these qualities that reflect the life of Jesus.

Father, help me to understand and put into practice this great principle of putting off the old self and putting on the new. Amen.