Wear Your Best to Represent the Lord: A Devotional

Colossians 3: 11-14 Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

What we wear says a lot about who we are and what we are willing to reveal about ourselves. I attended a black Baptist church as a little girl, and women were not allowed to wear pants to church. You wore your very best clothes, ironed and starched enough to stand on their own. Your shoes were polished.

Now, I attend a Methodist church that is less strict on what to wear, with people, males and females, coming to worship in pants or shorts, flip-flops, and whatever is comfortable to them. Although I still wear dresses or suits each Sunday as a minister, I have learned not to judge people by what they wear to church, but by the way they treat others. Do they wear their Christianity in ways that honor the Lord and permit people to know that they are the Lord’s people?

Is love seen in their interactions with all people, and do they wear a smile of welcome that shows that they see each person’s humanity and need that they belong? For in John 13:35, Jesus says to the disciples, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Let us not worry so much about what people wear on the outside to church or anywhere else, but let us concentrate on being people of the Lord, showing humility, compassion, gentleness, kindness, and patience. These are all fruit from the Holy Spirit that lives in us as the Lord’s people. Underscoring them all is the love of God that makes us one in Christ Jesus.

Amen.

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