Dress Up!

When was the last time you dressed up real fancy? Maybe it was this week, last week, last month, or even longer. Maybe it was for a wedding, graduation, church occasion, birthday celebration, special dinner, Prom, going to see a Broadway play. How did you feel when you got all dressed up? Happy? Excited? Nervous? Confident? Worried? A little bit of everything? Now, I'm sure after you got all dressed up that you took extra caution to make sure that your outfit stayed looking nice the whole time (especially if it was brand new!). I'm sure you also avoided anything that would cause your outfit to get snags, rips, tears, stains, or spills on it. I'm sure you did your best to keep it blemish-free. Depending on the occasion, that could be tough to do, especially if there's chocolate cake or red punch involved and you're wearing white! Well, just like we make sure that our physical appearance stays looking nice, we should dress up the inside of our heart too. We should keep our heart from getting snags, tears and rips also. Have you ever thought about that before? I know we can put a lot of effort in making sure we look nice on the outside, which is great. But what about putting just as much work and effort to make sure we look nice on the inside. So let's talk about how and what we can dress our heart up with. Proverbs 27:19 says, "As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person." Our heart reveals a lot about who we are. What's on the inside of us eventually comes out on the outside. Let's look at Colossians 3:12-15 to see exactly how we can dress up our heart. First, we need to dress up our heart with compassion and kindness (v.12). We need to show these to everyone and not just a select few. We can't pick and choose because God doesn't pick and choose. If He did, we would all be in trouble! He shows compassion and kindness to all of us. I'm so thankful! Ephesians 4:32 reminds us to be kind and compassionate to one another. We don't know what battle someone is facing and our kindness can change their whole outlook, their whole day. We have to be kind to the one who is dressed nice and the one who is not dressed their best. We have to be kind to the cashier that smiles at us and the cashier that doesn't smile at us. Next, we have to dress our hearts up with humility and gentleness (v.12). We're not always right. We don't know everything. We mess up. We fall short. Therefore, we have to be humble. We should admit our weaknesses and ask God to help us change our behavior. Since we don't know everything, we always have something to learn. We should always be willing to learn as we all can be lifelong learners. Showing gentleness means we are considerate of others everywhere we go- grocery store, mall, restaurant, church, school. We need to check our actions and words constantly to the Word of God. Then, we need to dress our heart up with patience and forgiveness (v.12-13). We have to learn to be thankful and use our time wisely in the wait. God will help us wait well and grow stronger in Him. We should forgive and ask God to forgive us every day. We should own up when we do something wrong. When we have done wrong to others, let's be the bigger person and forgive first. Even if we feel the other person should do so first, we need to forgive anyway. I know it's not easy, but we have to do it. We have to stop holding past mistakes against others and ourselves. We only hold ourselves in bondage when we don't forgive. But when we take that step of forgiveness though, it's so freeing! Sometimes we can be so hard on ourselves over mistakes and keep replaying them over and over in our mind. We don't have to though because God will forgive us and wants us to forgive ourselves. I've learned to forgive myself and ask for forgiveness from others much quicker than I used to. Also, I've learned to forgive the people who over the years have hurt me, talked about me, made fun of me, rejected me. Now, I can see those very same people and speak to them. It didn't happen overnight, but God got me there and I'm so glad He did! Finally, we need to dress up our heart with love and peace (v.14-15). Love is an action that should be shown to God, ourselves and others. Obeying God's Word shows we love Him. We need to take time to listen to others. We should want the best for others. Remember we take care of something we love. Peace is having a calmness that everything will be alright. We do our best not to get in drama nor start the drama. God will give us His peace as we go through our lives. In the storms and tough places, God's peace will be right there. So, you know how we like to check ourselves out in the mirror when we're looking nice (some do it more often than others!)??!! Well, let's check out our heart even more. Keep out rudeness, selfishness, unforgiveness, pride, complaining. All of these will cause stains and rips and we don't want that happening! Every day, let's choose to dress our heart up with what Colossians 3:12-15 says. We can't go wrong when we do that. When the inside of our heart is looking real nice, it will definitely show on the outside. So remember, let's dress up our heart with what is right!