Feeding the Sheep - Living the New Life 5

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"Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. 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."
-Apostle Paul, 1st century
Colossians 3:9-11

[This is the 20th message of this series]

This lesson is intended for mature believers (or adulting believers). For a more orderly study, please go through all the previous messages first, if you haven't yet.

Sinful Nature

This is the 5th part of this series, within a series.

To continue, we were talking about how the Apostle Paul is telling the first church in Colassae what "to do",  now that they are living their new life.

Lies

One of the things he mentioned was to stop lying to one another. This was particularly important as Paul found a need to emphasize and explain why.

For he knows this is easily said than done. All of us lie, white lies, black lies and any type of color lie in between. (Admit it, don't lie).

Many lie to save face. Some to save someone else. Many lie to protect people and not to hurt anyone. We lie because we cannot say no. We also lie because we cannot say yes. We lie for all the good reasons. And of course, sometimes we lie for all the selfish and self serving reasons.

New Creation

Being a new person, may take awhile to get used to. But the more we get to know Christ and walk in His Spirit, the more we become like Him.

God never lies. Jesus never lies. We on the otherhand have our fair share of lies. But then again that was the old us. That person is gone. Our old nature may still manifest itself by coming over to visit unannounced, from time to time. But our new nature will eventually make the connection that that old person is not us anymore.

God has redeemed us from that old nature. God has made us new. None of that old sinful ways are compatible with the new person and the Holy Spirit living inside us. 

The Holy Spirit is the voice we hear when we lie and when we do not so good things that we used to do.

Our job is to listen to His small still voice, telling us that we shouldn't do that anymore and to heed it. Repent and do better the next time. In the interim we continue to walk with God and be more like Christ each new day.


The ghost of our old self and that who it worships also whispers to our ears. And sometimes it is a matter of who we will heed. Heed wisely. 

Proverbs 16:20

"Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers,
    and blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord."

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