Last time we looked at Colossians 3:5-11 and Paul’s overarching list of things that Christians must abstain from; actions that hurt people and clearly violate God’s moral law. Today we turn the page over and look at a list of behaviors that every true Christian should be exhibiting in their lives; actions that build up others and reflect how Christ treats us.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Colossians 3:12-14 ESV
Paul begins this positive exhortation by addressing believers as “God’s chosen ones.” This can also be translated as “God’s elect” and aligns with all other New Testament teaching that demonstrates how God maintains an integral, sovereign role in our salvation (see John 6:44, Romans 8:29-30, Ephesians 1:4, etc.). The interesting thing is that God does not tell us how or why He chose us, just that He did, and yet His divine election does not negate the requirement for repentance and obedience (see Matthew 4:17, Luke 13:3, Acts 3:19, etc.). It’s truly one of the great mysteries of God, but one that should bring us comfort and peace, knowing that our salvation is secured forever in Christ. We touched on this eternal security back in Colossians 3:3 when we saw how our life is hidden with Christ in God.
Paul then goes on to list a number of characteristics that should be evident in believers, such as “compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience and forgiveness.” You’ll notice this looks very similar to the fruit of the Spirit Paul outlined in Galatians 5:22: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;”
I’ve always found it interesting that in the Galatians passage the word fruit is not rendered as plural, it is singular. This tells me that we shouldn’t expect to see only a few of these things in the life of a believer, we should see all of them. All of these traits are the single fruit that grows when we live for the Lord. Jesus explained we can tell the difference between real and fake believers by their fruit (see Matt. 7:15-18).
This is why it is so important that we humbly ask the Lord, as King David did in Psalm 139:23-24, to search our heart to reveal sins and weak spots. These may be sins of commission (wrong things we’re doing) or omission (right things we’re not doing), but either way they need to be identified and addressed. But we shouldn’t expect to fix these spiritual issues ourselves, instead we can acknowledge them, confess them, and seek the Spirit’s help and allow the Lord to root them out of us.
In verse 14 Paul writes, “and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.” In so many ways, love is the foundation of each of these proper behaviors and actions. As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, we can do all sorts of amazing things, but if we do not love, it all means nothing.
There’s no faking it. The fruit of the Spirit outlined both here in Colossians and in Galatians must be rooted in Christ and in His love. This is the not the love the world portrays, which is an emotional, conditional, and artificial love. It’s not the “love” that the world tells us to have for those who are living in unashamed, unrepentant sin (aka tolerance). True, heavenly love is only found in Christ, and we are to love others the same way He loves us. Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” (John 15:12).
And how did Jesus love? The same way Paul instructs the church to love. He was compassionate, kind, humble, meek, and patient. He did not hold grudges when people sought forgiveness. He told people the truth and did not let them believe a lie because it was socially acceptable. Christ was and forever is our perfect standard of true love and what we should be striving to see a little more of in our own lives each day.