The Get Dressed Series, pt. 1

A few months ago, my friend Greta gifted me the God Hears Her 40 Day Devotional Journal by Our Daily Bread. I have been slowly working my way through it and loving every minute. Well, you know me. I get to one passage of scripture or a thought and it may take me a few days or weeks to do all of the research and mapping for it before I can move on.

So in this journal, I have been stuck on Day 17 for a couple of days now. The scripture that went along with Day 17 is Romans 13:11-14. What struck me from this passage was verse 14. The line at the end of this verse reads, "clothe yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh."

If you've been with me a while, you may recall me mentioning that back in January I began taking classes at Moody Bible Institute. The courses I am taking are purely for personal growth. I wanted to learn how to better study the bible, properly interpret it and apply it to my life. Well, one of my first classes, and one that by far, I think, has been the most important and impactful focused on interpreting scripture. The biggest take away from this class for me was not to take scripture out of context. To not take scripture out of context there are two things I need to do, one, understand the background of the text and two, read the scriptures before and after the one I want to focus on.

So when I came upon Romans 11:14, I was struck by the simplicity of the sentence - "clothe yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ." prior to verse 14, verses 11-13 read:

11) And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. 12) The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13) Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy.

Without making this too complicated, this basically says, to me, "hey, let's get ourselves together. The time has come for us to put away our dark, sinful behavior and live the way God has intended us to. We know what to do and what not to do. We know better so let's do better."

The thought that came to me in my quiet time was, is it really that easy? But, how? How do we simply clothe ourselves in Christ and everything just works out? Can we do this without first having a relationship with God? This thought took me to reflecting on relationships in general. Relationships I have with friends, family, coworkers, the husband. People I trust. So then, how did we get here? Where did the trust come from?

I have grown to trust those I am in relationship with. Now how do I do that with God so that I may come into trust with Him and be able to clothe myself with the Lord Jesus Christ?