Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Fashion Sense 2 April 2008

1 Peter 2:1-10
Wednesday, 2 April 2008

For the fashion conscious,the changing of seasons signals the change of attire. But even those of us who cannot distinguish high fashion from a hand grenade still change our clothes to accommodate the temperature. Indeed, one of the ways that we can tell when a person's mental faculties are diminished is that they wear a winter coat in 95-degree weather or a sleeveless sun dress in the dead of winter. Safety, comfort, taste, and, yes, conformity to culture all dictate to us what to wear and what not to wear.

Continuing the description of the transition from nonbeliever to believer, 1 Peter 2 outlines the attitudes that clash with the life of holiness to which we are called. Funny, isn't it, that the writer's top five list of holiness fashion "don'ts" is not the list most often cited by church people? But even if we don't know it, the truth is that harboring a bad attitude is at least as likely to cause a person to miss the kingdom of God as any other failure or sin. It keeps us from the nourishment of God's word and inhibits our progress in growing closer to Christ. And I haven't even mentioned the havoc it wreaks in our relationship with the other saints.

Beloved, hear God telling us that while we are doing our spiritual spring cleaning, we need to take malice, guile, insincerity, envy and slander out of our closets and discard them. We are chosen as God's own people, holy and royal, and we have to dress the part, so that the world will see our light and praise our God. When we were in the world, our bad attitudes fit right in with the ways of the world. But now our spiritual safety, comfort, style, and culture in the kingdom of God make the attire of the world not only out of fashion but downright crazy.

Sing, "Close to Thee"

Let us pray:
God our Rock, attune our thoughts and dispositions to your perfect will. You have called us by your name and invested us with an excellent purpose. Expose and excise those aspects of our inward character and attitude that would block our growth and impede our intimacy with you. Help us to conform to the culture of your kingdom, to embody your style, to reflect your taste and in so doing keep us safe from the ways of the world and the wiles of the devil, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

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