Lesson 17 – Seeking the Right Passion, part 2 (3:5-11)
Read Colossians 3 - www.bible.com/bible/59/col.3
We begin this lesson with a reminder of our status in Jesus Christ as a new creation, as we learned in the last lesson. We have been born into a heavenly royal family, and now we need to learn how to act like the princes and princesses we already are. In our verses for this lesson, 5 through 11, we will learn which habits we need to get rid of from our old life, and then in the next lesson we’ll learn some new habits we need to build instead.
Here’s the list of our old habits we need to get rid of – verse 5 says we’re to put them to death, get rid of them forever:
Sexual immorality
Impurity
Dishonorable passion
Evil desire
Covetousness, which is idolatry
Anger
Wrath
Malice
Slander
Obscene talk
Lies
Prejudices
How do we break these habits, put them to death? There is only one way – with God’s help. But notice that verse 5 is a command to us – WE must put off these things. It doesn’t say we should pray and ask God to take them from us.
It may be kind of like learning to ride a bicycle. You cannot ask someone else to learn it for you, you must get on it and learn the art of balancing yourself on two wheels. But an interesting thing – we do not learn to ride a bicycle while it is standing still, we cannot learn to balance on it while we stay in the place where we have been. We only learn as we ride that bicycle to somewhere else.
The same is true of putting off these habits – we must leave the place where we found them. Where am I tempted to sexual immorality? Leave that place! In what circumstances am I tempted to lie? Leave that place.
We also cannot easily learn to ride a bicycle riding it in a circle. Neither can we hope to stay NEAR where we have practiced our sinful habits. In our next lesson we’ll study what destination we should be heading for as we leave the places of our sin.