Sonship of the Believer: Putting on Christ

Well praise the Lord, child of God! It’s good to be with you again today. I’m John Avanzini and welcome to Strengthen Your Walk.

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I want to talk to you today about putting on Christ. Now that is a phrase that’s used in the Bible. We’ll talk about it a little bit more and try to understand it better. In Galatians 3:26-27, we read, “For ye are all the children of God in faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Now think about that a minute: put on Christ. What it means actually is you now begin to walk more and more every day like Jesus walked. Think about it.

In Ephesians 5:1 it says, “You are the children that God dearly loves, so be just like Him.” That’s out of the New International Version. So, try to be just like Him! Well, is that going to happen immediately? No, it comes as a process. And you’ll find that Philippians 2:5 tells us, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

He’s not going to take you over like some kind of a disease. You’re going to have to let Him move through you. And as you let Him move, He will come and bring new ways of thinking and ways of doing things.

2 Corinthians 3:18 tells us that “… we are being transformed into the same image of Christ from glory unto glory by the Spirit of the Lord.” Now, “from glory unto glory” literally means from one degree of shining to another degree of shining. So, we’ll have a time where God will polish us and we’ll come up with a new luster. But that’s not the end of it because He comes again. And each time, each glory, we become a little bit more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

And then if you look at Colossians 3:12, it tells us not only to put on Christ – which means to act and to behave as He would – but it’s specific. It says, “… put on kindness; put on humility and put on longsuffering,” which is patience.

Man, patience … it says, “…tribulation worketh patience.” And some people would say, “God, give me patience.” Well, be careful because tribulation is what brings the patience so just be calm and try to meet the problems that come toward you by presenting them into the presence of God and having Him give you solutions and it won’t be very long and they’ll be out of your way.

Patience comes as you learn how to walk in trust with God. And then, not only patience, but He says, “Above everything else, put on love.” God is love. Jesus is love. And if you walk in love, you have put on the Lord Jesus and you now can be recognized as one of those that is an imitator of Christ.

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