“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” (Colossians 3:12 NIV)

By Julian Wells

In a January post I suggested that the most important question concerning Christ’s promised return is the one imbedded in 2 Peter 3:11- Until He returns, what kind of people ought we to be? The verse above is just one of a myriad of clear, compelling, and convicting answers the Bible provides to that question.

Kindness, compassion, humility, gentleness, and patience seem to be in short supply these days. The society around us is looking more and more like the days Paul described in 2 Timothy 3:2-4 where so many have become “lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

Until He returns, may our lives as Christians stand in such stark contrast to those trends that it demands an explanation. May we always be quick to explain that the hope, kindness, compassion, humility, gentleness, and patience others see in us is rooted in a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And may we always be prepared to introduce them to the Savior who “bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.” (1 Peter 2:24 ESV)

“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.” – Fred Rogers