“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature… you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips…. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Colossians 3:5-14
When it comes to the Christmas season, most of it is a positive experience. There are parties to attend, presents to unwrap, and family gatherings to enjoy. When you add that to the decorations, food and other holiday festivities, it makes for a great time of year.
However, there is at least one part of the Christmas season that’s a mixed blessing. That’s the annual day after Christmas gift exchange. In our household that job usually goes to me. I do it not because I’m such a great guy, but because it gets me out of having to do another less that thrilling after-Christmas event called putting up the decorations.
Anyhow, there’s just something about standing in line at Wal-mart on the day after Christmas taking back a single item that probably cost $10. Invariably, I get behind someone with a basket full of stuff to be returned. That’s bad enough. What really gets to me is the fact that the aforementioned someone doesn’t have a receipt for any of it and spends the next 30 minutes arguing with the clerk about the true value of each item.
That’s the down side. The upside is the after-Christmas sales. That’s when the retailers mark everything down to rock bottom just to get rid of it. And here’s the best part. You take the money from everything you took back that you didn’t want, and you use it to buy the stuff that do want which nobody in your family recognized that you were hinting for.
It’s really a pretty neat system that in the end all works out. But it does make you wonder if there might be a better way to go about it. Maybe if we all just gave each other cash instead of presents, we could avoid all the long gift exchange lines. It’s the right color, and it always fits. But then again you wouldn’t have anything to plug in, try on and pretend to like on Christmas morning. So I suppose we might as well just stay with what we have.
As important as this annual event is, there is one after-Christmas exchange that’s the most important of all. That’s the spiritual exchanges that we need to make in our lives. Actually, these exchanges can be made at any time of the year. But given the fact that we’re about to enter a new year, it’s a perfect opportunity to make some really significant changes in how we do life.
To help us with this, let me turn your attention to the 3rd chapter of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. Based on verses 5-14, I want to give you two lists for your after-Christmas exchange. The first list contains the things that need to be returned or removed from our lives. The second list details the things that we need to pick up or add to our lives. You may find it helpful to write these lists down as we make our way through them. Because at the end, I have a special assignment for what to do with them.
The Things to Return
When I was a kid, one of the activities that we usually did on Christmas evening was to go see my two great aunts – Florence and Frances. Both of them were wonderful people, but my aunt Frances was the more colorful of the two. She was a fun-loving, happy person who just enjoyed a very simple but satisfying life. For years she worked at a textile mill running a sock making machine. So naturally, her Christmas presents to the family were boxes of socks including her gift to me.
Of course, getting clothes for Christmas isn’t something that most kids look forward to, but the sock gift was especially troublesome. Here’s why. Each year she would give me a dozen pairs of white socks. I guess in her mind that was a great gift. But aunt Frances wasn’t up on Jr. High fashion trends.
She had no way of knowing that in the early 70’s, wearing white socks at school was a dangerous thing. You didn’t just get made fun of for wearing white socks. You could actually get the life beat out of you if you had a pair on. Even gym class was a little risky. And Lord help you if you had a pair of white socks on that had the colored rings around the top.
Thankfully, my mom had enough sensitivity to my dilemma that she didn’t make me wear them. But she just couldn’t let herself throw them out. So every year, I would place my dozen new white socks in the bottom drawer on top of the dozen new white socks I got the year before. After several years, my bottom drawer was like a geological formation with layers of socks dating back several years. Even though we didn’t need the socks and even though keeping the socks took up valuable drawer space, we just kept them and kept them and kept them.
Unfortunately, we can do the same thing with certain flawed behavior traits that develop in our lives over the years. I think it’s safe to say that most of us at some level are aware of the presence of these traits, and we probably recognize that our lives would go better if we got rid of them.
However, like the white socks, we just keep stuffing them down in the bottom drawer of our hearts hoping that their presence won’t hinder us too much. But the problem is that they do hinder us. Left alone, these sinful qualities infect our spiritual health while crowding out our sense of peace and damaging our relationships. So instead of keeping them in our hearts, our job is to get rid of them.
That’s what Paul was getting at in the verses 5-9 of Colossians 3. He was writing to believers who had already been forgiven for their sins and who had a relationship with Christ. Yet he realized that in order for them to progress in their faith, they would need to deal strongly with the sinful tendencies they still had within them. Paul indicates that we should get rid of these things. It means to do whatever we have to do to get it cleaned out of our hearts. It means to take the responsibility for how we treat others and make some changes. It means to apologize. It means to make amends. It means to change.
Is it hard? You bet. It is going to take work? Absolutely. But does it still need to be done? No question. Whatever we do, we cannot keep sticking them in the bottom drawer of our hearts. It’s time to get them out and keep them out.
The Things To Pick Up
There’s a man I know who had a rather odd habit when it came to buying presents for his family at Christmas and just celebrating the holiday in general. For instance, instead of getting his Christmas tree a couple of weeks before Christmas like most folks, he waiting until the last minute. In his case, the last minute was Christmas Eve night. He would go to the Christmas tree lots after they were closed and just pick up one of the abandoned trees, bring it home and decorate it. I guess you could call him frugal.
But that wasn’t the half of it. It wasn’t uncommon at all for him to wait until after Christmas was over before he began doing his Christmas shopping. That’s right. He would wait until after Christmas to buy presents for his family. I guess he figured why pay full price for something on the day before Christmas when it would be half price the day after Christmas.
Personally, I think that’s taking things a bit too far, but there is something fun about taking advantage of the after-Christmas sales. That special piece of clothing which was just too expensive is now in reach. That item you really wanted but didn’t get can now be purchased. And the money you get back from the dozen white socks you didn’t want…. Well, anyhow, you get the point.
Spiritually speaking, there are some things we need to pick up as a part of our after-Christmas exchange. To help us with this we turn to Paul once again. In verses 12-14 of Colossians 3, Paul lists for us seven things that we need for a healthy spiritual life. These are quality items that have stood the test of time. If you have these things in your life, it will simply go better for you.
In looking at this list, I want you to understand that it’s a package deal. Merely getting an item or two from the list though helpful will still put limits on how well your life is going to go next year. The truth is we need all of them if we really want to reach the maximum potential of what God has for us.
- An identifying compassion is where you seek to look at life through other people’s eyes and try to understand what they think and feel.
- A sensing kindness is a sensitivity to the people around you so that you are aware of their needs and feelings.
- A self-examining humility comes when we learn to let go of our pride and accept that there are perspectives on things other than our own.
- A nurturing gentleness means to think about the feelings of others before you say or do things that might be hurtful or offensive.
- An understanding patience is an attitude of acceptance which communicates the value of others despite our differences.
- A releasing forgiveness lets go of past failures by covering them with a spirit of grace.
- A unifying love focuses not on the feelings of love but on the commitment that true love requires.
These are the things we need to pick up for the new year. As I’ve already mentioned, we need all of them not just some of them if we’re truly to see a difference in our lives.
At the beginning of this post, I mentioned that I would have an assignment for you. Here it is. I want you to look over your two lists, and I want you to identify one item from each list that you sense is the most pressing for you to address.
From the list of things that need to be returned, determine what part of your behavior that most needs to be removed from your heart. Identify it, talk to God about, share it with your family, and come up with some kind of plan to help you get it out of your life.
Then from the list of things to pick up, focus on which of the seven positive behaviors that you believe would best help you in your life. Once again, talk to God about, share it with your family, and determine how you’re going to go about implementing it in your life.
The goal, of course, is to get rid of everything we don’t need and add everything we do need. However, taking it all on at once may be a bit daunting. So start with one from each list, and deal with the others in due time. May the great after-Christmas exchange begin.