"Put off, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry… You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator… Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." (Excerpts from Colossians 3:5-12)
One of the most important metaphors the Bible uses for sin is that of clothing. It speaks of “putting off” anger, slander, rage, greed, sexual impurity, and so on. And then it speaks of “putting on” those characteristics that flow from life in the Spirit. One of the ways you can think about sin is to use the acronym R.A.G.S. Those characteristics we are to “put off” by and large fit into one of these four categories: R.A.G.S
Resentment: mismanaged anger and bitterness
Anxiety: an inability or refusal to
trust God; sins of passivity and timidity
Greed: mismanaged desire of all kinds
Superiority: self-righteousness and
contempt for others
-- John Ortberg in “The Me I Want to Be”
#5603
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