Let's Dress Ourselves

Revelation 3:18 - My advice is that you buy gold from me that has been purified by fire so that you may be rich, and white clothing to wear so that your nakedness won't be shamefully exposed, and ointment to put on your eyes so that you may see....

Nakedness is the absence of clothing. We are invited in several places in the Bible, especially in the New Testament, to clothe ourselves:

Colossians 3:14 - And over all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

I Peter 4:8 - First of all, have ardent love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins.

Colossians 3:12 - Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and loved, put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

This is the white clothing that Jesus advises us to buy from Him. (See "Come, buy, without paying anything.") These are not human qualities or natural character traits that just anyone could have.

Matthew 5:46-48        - If you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Don't even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing? Don't even the Gentiles do the same?

Therefore, just as your heavenly Father is complete in showing love to everyone, so also you must be complete.

These clothes of permanent beauty and superior quality are priceless; they are not found outside of the celestial clothing store. They are beyond the limits of your budget and mine. The exorbitant price necessary to acquire them is calculated according to the two following criteria:

- They are worth the price of the precious blood of the Only Begotten Son of God who places them at the disposal of anyone who asks Him.

-Christ sells them, free of charge, only to the one who agrees to pay the high price of unconditional acceptance of his inability to buy them with his own inner or outer wealth.

In fact, these garments are already part of the hidden life of the born-again Christian who has been clothed with the righteousness of Christ. It is up to you to take them and put them on. We must do that. But they are hidden, just like this new life, the divine life onto which we have been grafted.

Colossians 3:3-4 - You died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

Who can put on a garment that is hidden?

Our true life is now in that invisible spiritual union, this grafting into Christ, that occurred when, through the action of the Holy Spirit, we were born again. It is this grafting that causes life to flow into us, a new source of life that is hidden from our natural eyes and from our natural intelligence and understanding. It is through several acts of revelation of the Holy Spirit that we begin to glimpse and know Christ in us, the image of the invisible God, the imprint of His Person.

We are then invited to put on these clothes that have now been revealed to us, the clothes of the new man, that is to say, the new way of thinking, the attitudes and behaviors of the One who created this new man. It begins with a supernatural, inner and spiritual action, which translates, develops, grows, and strengthens itself more every day in the practice of very distinct actions called good works.

Colossians 3:10 - and put on the new nature, which is renewed in knowledge by conforming to the image of the one who created it.

Colossians 1:9-11 - asking for you to be filled with the knowledge of God's will, with all wisdom and spiritual understanding. We're praying this so that you can live lives that are worthy of the Lord and pleasing to him in every way: by producing fruit in every good work and growing in the knowledge of God; by being strengthened through his glorious might.

It is with the face uncovered, naked, fully convinced of our nakedness, of the absence of these precious garments, acquired by the Precious Blood of the Lamb, that we approach the One who opens the eyes of the spirit so that they are capable of contemplating, even imprecisely (like a mirror), the glory of the Lord and be transformed, dressed in white, resplendent.

We are transformed from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.

2 Corinthians 3:18 - All of us are looking with unveiled faces at the glory of the Lord as if we were looking in a mirror. We are being transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to the next degree of glory. This comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

It was necessary for Jesus to take his disciples to the mountain and that a supernatural operation take place on their eyes in order for them to be able to see the dazzling whiteness of his clothing. They were dazzling in the spiritual realm but invisible in the natural realm, where the disciples only saw a good, merciful, humble, patient, and gentle man who could perform extraordinary miracles.

Mark 9:2-3 - Six days later Jesus took Peter, James, and John and brought them to the top of a very high mountain where they were alone. He was transformed in front of them, and his clothes were amazingly bright, brighter than if they had been bleached white.

It is the same for us today without our having to go through such a spectacular experience. We must see Jesus Christ in all wisdom and spiritual intelligence. One can only glimpse the immaculate whiteness of the precious garments of the new man and put them on when the Holy Spirit, the Lord, reveals Christ to us. Only this contemplation has the transformative power to stimulate and to give the ability to strip us of the old man, of the body of the flesh, (to cause us to abandon old ways of thinking and reacting which we had before our new birth), and to put on the new man (to adopt the new mentality and the way of acting and reacting).

Colossians 2:11 - In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not administered by human hands. The circumcision of Christ is realized in the stripping away of the whole self, dominated by sin.

It is necessary at one time or another, in one way or another and even in repeated ways, to see the image of the first new man, Christ. But no one can naturally see the One who is now in heaven at the right hand of the invisible God.

It is the mission of the Holy Spirit to reveal this to us. Without Him, we have only a human and intellectual knowledge of Jesus Christ, a knowledge that is dead, insufficient and powerless to transform us. It is not possible to describe the mysterious act of revelation. Let us believe that every time the Holy Spirit opens our eyes a little more, when the intelligence and knowledge of our mind is enlightened, we know it at the moment when this happens and we inevitable see concrete and lasting effect in our daily lives. Only the Holy Spirit, like the cloud in the wilderness, can, by strengthening our spiritual being, lead us and give us the ability to remain both in a state of maximum and continuous vigilance and in rest.

John 15:26 - But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness of me.

John 16:13 - When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

Life thus becomes a continual overflow of gratitude and thanksgiving.

Colossians 2:7 - rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

The witness of the Holy Spirit illuminates the eyes of the heart so that we know as we should know. That is what we have to look for first.

Romans 14:17 - For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 6:33 - But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

Christ invites us to buy from Him his white clothes: love, mercy, goodness, humility, meekness, patience. These clothes shine in the spiritual night and drive away all surrounding darkness. These virtues when practiced in everyday life are powerful weapons of light that drive away spiritual darkness. If we will only let our spiritual eyes be opened, we will see the lethal weapon (against demons) that a seemingly insignificant gesture of kindness or gentleness or an encouraging word inspired by the Spirit is.

When Jesus arrived in a place, clothed in these clothes, which only those who had experienced the mountain of transfiguration would have known existed, the demons groaned and shrieked in terror. They were suddenly flushed out by His blinding light because spirits see this light.

Romans 13:12 - The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

Ephesians 5:9 - for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true.

The power, the light that illuminates every man and that unmasks and dispels all darkness is carried by every person who is clothed in these white garments which have been purchased from Christ. It is this power that performs miracles and prodigious healings.

As is expressed in this blog, it is essential that we seek the kingdom of God by asking for these eye drops and that we walk everyday according to the insight, motivation, and strength that Christ reveals to us by this ointment on the eyes. Putting on Christ is a miracle made possible through the revelation of the person of Christ, by the Holy Spirit given to us. To put on Christ is to clothe ourselves in love, mercy, goodness, humility, meekness and patience, through the power of the Holy Spirit in a joyful and constant obedience to Him. Let us remember that Jesus said, "Without me, you can do nothing."

The power that many are looking for is within reach. His power is given to help us live the life of the risen one by abiding in Christ; it is not given for ephemeral and vain glory.

Colossians 1:11 - being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.