A lifebuoy is offered

So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. (Colossians 3:5, 10-11)

Put to death...put on your new nature. These are very clear instructions - put the old away, put on the new. Stop going back to the old - stick with the new. How? Be renewed - we need a renewal process to occur. It is not enough to just say 'yes' to Jesus - one must press in to know him well, forsaking all manner of sin, and embracing this new life in Christ with all the passion we once put into pursuing our sin!

In counseling realms, we call this the 'put off - put on' dynamic. We 'put off' some behavior that is not good for us to pursue and we replace it with one that is honorable, upright, and 'good'. We stop and we start. Seems pretty basic, doesn't it? Yet, we have the hardest time with this when it comes to putting it into operation in our lives. As silly as it may sound, when a counselor advises us to write a letter, putting all our thoughts, hurts, and even our anger into that letter, then rip it up, there is a cathartic effect to that task.

While God doesn't ask us to 'write a letter' putting in all our hurts and hangups, he does ask us to bring those things to him, allowing him to be the one to 'destroy' them in our lives. He asks for us to have a catharsis - where sin once dwelt, let it go, be done with it, move on. Put something else in its place - the Word of God, a new action that brings honor into our lives, or even just the peace he gives when we finally let it go. He moves heaven and earth to help us be free - why do we still hold so tightly to those things that he asks us to purge from our lives with his help?

If a drowning man was offered a lifebuoy, do you think he'd reject it and just keep sinking deeper until he finally drowned? Only if that was his ultimate intent! Most of us are drowning in our sin, not sure where our help will come from, but when Jesus offers us that lifebuoy, will we take it? I think so! When he offers us a way to be free of the things that weigh us down and give us such trouble in life, do we let them go? If we are smart, we would! Just sayin!