Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, 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. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
– Colossians 3:5-15 (ESV)
There’s so much in this passage. I can’t do it justice. But there are some things that jump out at me:
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you . . . Whoa. Paul goes on to list some of the things that constitute “earthly”. And it is, indeed, all very down to earth stuff. All the lusts, the wants, the desires that, unlike Godly desires, don’t fill us with eager anticipation so much as they fill us with frustration and anger. All this is “earthly” and must be put to death. Not reformed, not “set right”. There are no leaves to turn over here. We are to become new leaves.
We are to take the earthly in us out behind the barn and kill it with an axe.
It hits me: for someone who is not in Christ, all they have is earthly. It’s impossible to put the earthly to death, as there is nothing there to replace it with, outside of Christ. But in Christ? Yes, behind the barn, with the axe. Now.
It would be easy for some of us to look at the things Paul listed, “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire”, and perhaps feel a bit “safe”, skipping over that unfortunate little clause about covetousness (that pesky forgotten tenth commandment!). But the list goes on: “anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another . . .”, and, I don’t know about you, but any leg I had to stand on has just been amputated, with extreme prejudice. These are all of the earth, they are foreign to Christ, and must be put away. For someone who is in Christ, these constitute all that is the “old self”, which must be stripped off like muddy clothes after a romp in the swamp. The clothes stick; they have almost become part of me. They are heavy and slimy and stifling. And they must be removed. New clothing is called for:
“Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other . . .”
We are holy and beloved, and called with a calling that is high above “earthly”. It is heavenly, and we are called to be heavenly bodies, shining as the stars. These traits that shine through us, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and especially love, are not natural, just as royal raiment is foreign to one who has worn dirty rags all his life. But what more natural clothing is there, really, for a child of the King? Worn daily we will soon feel at home in these princely garments.
We’ve been chosen by God. Chosen for these new clothes!
For those of you with an inner geek: I installed a Wiki for Out of the Bloo this weekend. You can get to the wiki 
For a brief time when I was in high school the word everyone used was “excellent”. Yes, just like Wayne and Garth (it’s scary how much I was like them when I was that age – heh). We would say “excellent” for everything. But few of us knew what excellence really was. To be honest, my idea of “excellence” at the time was to be the drummer for the rock band Rush. As good as they were (Wayne and Garth: “Excellent!”) there’s no way I’d trade a relationship with the Lord for all the riches and fame this world can offer. Because I’ve seen glimpses of what real “Excellent” looks like, in the beautiful spirits of some wonderful Christians I’ve known, and – rarely, and only for brief seconds – in my own heart as Christ has worked in me. But mostly, I’ve seen what excellence is as I’ve come to know Jesus better; for He is the only One who ever lived “Excellent” every day of His life.