Back to School

Pause

For lots of students, going back to school means trying on new or hand-me-down clothes, finding shoes that fit growing feet, or getting that required uniform for the dance or sports team.

In addition to the outfit you put on this morning, consider what it might look like to “put on” something else today — to clothe yourself with Christ.

Listen

And over all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

Colossians 3:14

Think

Clothing ourselves with Christ is a metaphor that Paul uses to describe what it means to live out our identity as baptized Christians. Because we’ve been buried and raised to a new life in Christ, we are visibly formed by the characteristics of Jesus; we “wear” compassion, humility, tolerance, forgiveness. And above all? Love.

Love is the accessory that completes our outfit. Love is the piece that pulls it all together.

Love is the piece that pulls us all together. Paul says love “is the perfect bond of unity.”

Clothing ourselves with Christ’s love is kind of like dressing out in school colors on Friday night for the football game. Some wear the band uniform and others the cheerleading uniform, some paint their entire upper bodies and faces while others wear a school t-shirt. The color is the uniting factor. Putting on the school colors doesn’t erase who we are as individuals, but it unites us in a bigger, collective identity.

Wear the color of Christ’s love — and let it unite you with your community today.

Meredith Forssman

Pray

Lord, your very essence is love. You’ve created each one of us so differently and uniquely. Let your love pull us together in unity. This I pray for my community. Amen.

Go

You are always in God’s sight pleasing,
always in God’s sight lovely,
always in God’s sight as though you were perfect.

For you are complete in Christ Jesus, and perfect in Christ Jesus.

You stand fully clothed in Christ.

Always.

Based on words by the great 19th-century preacher, Charles Spurgeon