After railing on their former life, Paul indicates that they do not need to subject themselves to indulging the flesh because they have put off the old and put on the new. Paul them immediately explains how this works with the following beautiful description of how believers ought to treat one another.
Colossians 3:12-17
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness,humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 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.
Speaking of beautiful, how beautiful would it be if this was a reality in our lives today?
We often think of unity or treatment of other believers in the context of our local church body, but that is not where Paul goes. Immediately after this passage, Paul describes how this type of love and treatment works within the home life. While it is not always the case, typically, we share life with fellow believers. (If you are the only Christian in your family, then my prayer is that your other family members will soon be hit with the full force of the Gospel and respond to Christ.)
Generally speaking, our parents, children, and spouses tend to hold to the same faith we do. We think of unity in the body of Christ in the local church and how difficult it is to maintain, sometimes, with people we see only once, of perhaps a few times, per week. How much more difficult is it to maintain unity in Christ with our families? People who irritate us, fail us, know our weaknesses, annoy us, hassle us, frustrate us. Obviously, family life has the capacity to be the greatest joy in our life, but it can also be the heaviest burden to us, since we invest so much time and energy into it.
We must resist the temptation to compartmentalize our family relationship with our church family relationship. We refuse to accept division in our churches, we must also refuse to accept division in our home. We are not assured of perfect harmony and unity in our home just because it is filled with Christians. It takes hard work and dedication. If the context of the local church, we go to great lengths to structure the church in a way that promotes unity. If there is a hint of division, then there are meetings and prayer an extreme efforts in order to prevent further division. The same precautions should be taken in our home life. Spiritual conversations should be happening in our homes. Between spouses, between parents and children. When you look at your believing spouse or believing child, think, “This is my brother, this is my sister.”
We treat our family well because we love them. We treat them well to be a good example to unbelievers. But we also treat our family well because it is an act of obedience. We share a special bond because of genetics. For those in each family that share faith in Christ, we share a special bond, having unity in the Spirit.
Point being, you don’t have to wait until Sunday to love on your brothers and sisters in the faith. You can stay in your PJ’s and do it today!