“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Colossians 3:12 NIV
God chose to create us. He chose to let us continue living after sin entered the world and He chose to send Jesus to pay the final price for our sins so that we could be able to spend eternity in heaven with Him. He chose all of that. When we choose to believe in God and follow Christ then we are choosing God. God loves us very much. God has shown us compassion, He has been kind to us, He has been gentle with us and He has been patient with us.
When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we are to imitate Him in our actions, thoughts and words. We take off hatred, hostility, cruelty, impatience and pride. We are to replace them, as a new creation, with compassion, gentleness, patience and kindness.
Humility comes when we realize that we can do none of this without Christ, that those actions and thoughts are hard to be consistently shown by us if we rely on our human nature. We need to rely on Christ to help us demonstrate to others the same love and compassion that has been shown to us.
Heavenly Father, please help us to rely on You to show others the love and compassion, the patience and gentleness that You have shown us and instilled us to show others. Living in this world and trying to rely only on ourselves is a losing battle. Help us to not let the devil get a foothold in our lives. Continue to give us the strength we need to live life as Your chosen people. In Christ’s name Amen.