“You were taught…to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Ephesians 4:24

It’s New Year’s Eve and you are heading to a party. Perhaps you are going with friends, a boyfriend, or your husband. Usually the bigger question is not who are you going with, but what you will be wearing. Let’s face it, women often worry and fret about outfits. I know that if I have a hot date or big event coming up, I’ll pick out my clothes days in advance. As women, we worry about our clothes pretty regularly. “What am I going to wear to work?” “What am I going to wear to school?” “What am I going to wear to go out?”

Here is a challenging question: Do we spend more time each day in God’s Word or looking in the mirror? As professionals we need to dress a certain way for work. When we go out of our house to run errands, meet friends, or go to church, we look in the mirror. We might even look in that mirror for hours. The mirror that we need when we become so consumed with our physical appearance or other worldly things is the mirror of the law. We are reminded in James 1:23-25: “Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.” Are we continuing in worldliness and focusing our thoughts on earthly things, or the things that will last forever (Matthew 6:19-22)?

It’s a new year. This is a time for young and old alike to make resolutions. Some women resolve to be a better student/wife/mother/friend, resolve to eat healthier, or resolve to quit smoking.  The central passage for this devotion gives us direction for the perfect New Year’s resolution: “You were taught…to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Paul reminds us what we are to resolve to do every day of our Christian lives. Through our baptism we have been brought into God’s family and we have been made new. He has taken our dirty, soiled, clothes—our old Adam that was consumed only with worldly things. Through Jesus’ redemptive work, we were given the robe of righteousness to live a new and holy life. God has remade us in his image. He remade and equipped us to love, serve, and praise Him. Let us love Him by putting on our new self daily, just as we put on our new clothes every morning.  The only way we can put on that new self every day, however, is through our loving God with the help of the Holy Spirit. Whew! If it were up to me, I’d still be in dirty sweatpants and the filth of my own sins. When I wake up each day he has already clothed me and equipped me to be in my actions what I already am by grace. We have a great and wonderful God who does the same for us all!

So, ladies, one of the biggest decisions we face on New Year’s Eve, or at the beginning of any day, is what we will wear.  Well, no matter what we choose in the way of clothing, let’s make sure we continue to be in fact the new person God has already remade us to be by grace (Galatians 3:26-27): baptized and redeemed daughters of the King. These are the only clothes that will fit us eternally!

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for making me the woman I am. You have clothed me with the robe of righteousness that Jesus won for me. Help me to put on my new self, created in your image, each day. Equip me to love, serve, and praise you in all I do. Let me show love in all my relationships so that when people see me, they see you! Amen.

For Further Reading:
Ephesians 4:17—5:2

Written by Margaret Polzin
Reviewed by Professor Joel Gerlach