Put On The New Man预览

New cloth to patch old clothing? 

Imagine taking a shower every day and wearing clean clothes—except for your socks. You never change your socks; you wear them forever; you never clean them or wash them. You are very fashionable, you always wear the latest trends, but the socks you wear are the same ones you wore at your graduation, and you will wear them every day until you are old. What would happen then? After a few days, everyone will begin to notice that you have a problem since they will detect a rather peculiar smell. No one will want to stand next to you. The same thing happens to us when we decide to keep some of our old self on, even when we know we should not do that anymore.

Some people think that God came into their lives to patch up their old clothing, to repair holes, to somehow clean their conscience, and to clean up how they are seen by other people; but that is not what He came to do. Nobody uses a new cloth to patch old clothing. When we were in Adam, we were wearing our old self, our old clothing; we smelled bad; we were an unpleasant sight. God says, “No one uses a new piece of cloth to patch old clothes.” God does not come into our lives with old clothes. It is human beings who are used to trying to patch up their lives, that is all they can do. 

Psychology is dedicated to patching up people with broken emotions, but every time a patch is put on them, another piece breaks down. As long as people keep doing the same things, they are going to end up with the same results. Religion is dedicated to removing stains from people’s clothing, but the same stains appear again. Week after week, people come back the same: they remove the stains from the surface, but they never get to what causes such stains. Education irons out the clothes, but does not transform the spirit. Philosophy perfumes the human stench with humanism, but it cannot fix our behavior. Science embellishes people’s garments, but it cannot remove the ragged appearance of the history of mankind. 

People can try and patch up their clothing, but that will not fix the human condition. God is not in the business of patching up people’s lives; what He does is He creates new lives. God does not have a laundry room, a dry cleaner, or a sewing workshop, He has new clothing. That is what He gives, His gift to us. He gives new garments freely to anyone who wants to receive them.