A move into a new apartment or house usually involves changing the look of that home. Painting walls and maybe even trim helps establish your own effect. One coat of paint, two coats, gradually the room changes. It becomes a new room, ready for you to make it yours.
When we are saved, we’re supposed to become new people, representing and showcasing our God. Paul knew this may not come naturally. He therefore specifically instructed the church of Colossae in Colossians 3:5-17 and the church of Ephesus in Ephesians 4:17-32 to put off the old man and put on the new. Some aspects of the lives of unsaved people should never be evidenced in the life of a Christian: “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry . . . anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth”(Colossians 3:5-8). The next words encourage the Christian to “put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator”( Colossians 3:9-10), indicating that the more we learn of our God, the easier it will be to put on that new self.
Interestingly, both passages emphasize the necessity of truth. Colossians 3:9 reads, “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices.” In Ephesians 4, Paul describes people who had no sensitivity to God and therefore had lost their understanding, had become callous, and had given in to sin of all kinds. These people also had lost the ability to recognize truth. Paul encourages the believers in verse 25, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” Lying is a common temptation. We need to recognize our own tendency to embellish or misrepresent situations and resist so that we don’t become hardened and blind to sin. We also need to be wise rather than naïve as we listen to the world around us; not everything spoken or written is true.
Colossians 3:17 concludes the encouragement to put on the new man in our everyday lives with the words, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” The words, “in the name of,” remind us that we represent the Savior. Splotches of the old paint color, the old self, should disappear under our new look, the image of the Creator.