Clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ… (Romans 13:14)

What we wear matters. Certain days and certain events involve certain care to decide what to wear. We want to make the right impression. We don’t want to be over-dressed or under-dressed. What we wear says something about what we think about ourselves. But what does it means to “clothe yourself” with Jesus?

Remember the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. The emperor thought he was wearing what he was not. Everyone else knew that emperor was not wearing clothes but no one told the emperor so that the only one fooled was the emperor. Have we ever fooled ourselves into thinking we were clothed with Jesus when those who looked at us knew we were not?

Baptism is a moment when we put on new spiritual clothes. We shed the old and receive the new. Remember your baptism. Remember that you are baptized. You have new clothes. Do they still fit or have we let ourselves go, that is, have we lost the self-discipline necessary to be clothed with Christ? We cannot live this Christian life alone. We must be part of a group that will help us see what we do not (no clothes!) and hold us accountable (clothe yourself).

My quiet time began with this verse from Proverbs 19:2. “Desire without knowledge is not good, how much more will hasty feet miss the way.” When I have been hasty, I have sometimes put on mismatched clothes or the wrong clothes for the wrong occasion. Knowledge. I keep reading scripture to learn and discern the way of the Lord Jesus Christ so that I recognize the “clothes” of Christ and wear them.