Don't Go To Walmart in Your Pajamas

Now for the record, I shop at Walmart. I just want to get that out of the way so folks won’t think I’m poking fun at people. As you may or may not know (if not, consider yourself blessed by God), there are sites on the internet that poke fun at people who shop at Walmart. Now realize that poor taste and bad clothing decisions are not limited to people shopping at a particular store. But I will say, that after I got married, my wife and I lived in a town where Friday night at the local Walmart was an interesting study in…well…culture. Let’s leave it at that.


Too often these days we see people with no shame walking around in pajama pants. I get that they are comfortable, but come on people – grow up. A couple of weeks ago at detention center, we talked through Ephesians 4, and about putting off and putting on. At the time I hadn’t thought of this illustration, but it works for our topic, Five Things To Do Before Getting Out Of Bed.

I’m going to assume that since you have enough class to read my blog, you have enough class to not wear pajama pants to go shopping. So for the sake of argument, I’ll assume that your morning routine involves crawling out of bed, and at some point, whether before coffee or after, removing the pajamas and putting on clothes for work or school.

Paul uses that visual to encourage us to “put on” good behavior:

But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. 9  Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; 10  And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: 11  Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all. Colossians 3:8-11

Paul tells us to “put off” these acts of the flesh that have covered us like a garment. If we’re honest, we gave into at least one, if not many more on this list yesterday, maybe even today. 1 John 1:9 is like our “Christian bar of soap” – if we confess, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Most of us wouldn’t go more than a day without a shower – in the same way, we shouldn’t go long without confessing and being forgiven and cleansed.

So we narrowed our focus onto the One Who died for us; we determined that we are not going to be entertained by the things He died for; so we’re putting those things off, like a garment, and throwing them not in the laundry basket but the burn pile.

As a kid, or maybe as an adult, did you ever suck all the air out of a glass pop bottle and let it hang off of your lip? Fun, right? Nature abhors a vacuum. So does our life. It’s not enough not to just put off, we need to put on.

But unlike the morning routine where we stand in front of the closet, wondering what to wear, wishing we had ironed something the night before, Paul leaves us no room for questioning what we need to put on in our spiritual life:

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; 13  Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. 14  And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness. 15  And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. 16  Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Colossians 3:12-16  

Kindess, forgiveness, meekness, humility – it’s all a far cry from what the world tells us we should be. Putting on these Christlike character traits will give us a peace of God that can rule our hearts.

So we’ve tackled four out of our five things – tomorrow, we will look at something that has become a major hypocrisy in our country in the last few years as we nail down the last thing we need to do before hopping out of the warm bed and putting our feet on the cold hardwood floor of life.