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- Oct 26, 2007
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Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, The Holy One of Israel: "I [am] the LORD your God, Who teaches you to profit, Who leads you by the way you should go. Isaiah 48:17 NKJV
When Shakespeare’s Macbeth said, “Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?” he was struggling with an identity he wasn’t sure belonged to him.
This is a constant theme in literature: Does clothing really make the man? Paul used the same metaphor sixteen hundred years earlier to explain that in Jesus, they do: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:17). His are not borrowed clothes—and they determine the identity of every man who wears them.
Unlike Macbeth, who murders to assume his new identity, believers possess counsel like “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you’—when you already have it with you” (Proverbs 3:27-28). The fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23 sum up the kinds of actions and attitudes Christians wear. They’re what secure God’s blessing: “If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea” (Isaiah 48:18). The continual waves of well-being God wants to give you are a result of the clothes you wear—the unborrowed clothes of Jesus Christ.
Prayer: Father, help me wear the clothes that show the identify You have given me.
When Shakespeare’s Macbeth said, “Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?” he was struggling with an identity he wasn’t sure belonged to him.
This is a constant theme in literature: Does clothing really make the man? Paul used the same metaphor sixteen hundred years earlier to explain that in Jesus, they do: “For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:17). His are not borrowed clothes—and they determine the identity of every man who wears them.
Unlike Macbeth, who murders to assume his new identity, believers possess counsel like “Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act. Do not say to your neighbor, ‘Come back tomorrow and I’ll give it to you’—when you already have it with you” (Proverbs 3:27-28). The fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23 sum up the kinds of actions and attitudes Christians wear. They’re what secure God’s blessing: “If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea” (Isaiah 48:18). The continual waves of well-being God wants to give you are a result of the clothes you wear—the unborrowed clothes of Jesus Christ.
Prayer: Father, help me wear the clothes that show the identify You have given me.
