Colossians 3:5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Intentionality is a deliberate and purposive mental state of actions, thoughts, desires, beliefs and hopes that are directed towards achieving a particular objective or goal.
The moment we accept Christ as our Saviour earthly passions and evil desires do not wither away. They coexist and cause conflict in our inner man. This is why Paul writes, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do (Romans 7:15). As long as the sin nature co-exists we will keep falling into the same sin over and over again and go back to the Lord in repentance and regret. Hence, in order to progress in our Christian journey “intentionality” plays a vital role.
We have to deliberately put-off thoughts, words and deeds that would pull us back into our old lifestyle. Habits have to be put-off, entertainment that distracts and diverts/perverts must be put-off and the innate nature of anger, envy and pride must be crucified. When we put-off the sin nature, we must deliberately put-on godliness, holiness and humility. Put-off hatred and put-on love, put-off envy and put-on appreciation, put-off anger and put on-patience. As long as we make excuses we will never see transformation in our spiritual lives.
Transformation is a deliberate and intentional process.
Three steps to intentionally transform:
1. Put-On: Every morning we must dress ourselves spiritually with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Missing one element is like walking out of your door, half-dressed.
2. Put-Off: Similarly, we must put-off lies, anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language. A constant and regular check on our thoughts, words and deeds is absolutely necessary.
3. Put-to-Death: There are certain traits that must be killed, uprooted and completely annihilated from our inner man such as sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed. We cannot just put-off evil as it will tempt us back into sin. These are cancer-cells to our soul and will soon consume us if we don’t kill them.
To put-on Christ-likeness, put-on godliness and put-to-death unholiness is a deliberate and intentional spiritual exercise. We must be intentional in order to be fruitful.
Prayer: Jesus my Saviour, Give me the wisdom and the tenacity to put-on Christ and crucify the flesh. Amen.
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