The Clothing of Heaven . . . How Do You Wear Yours?
Recently our son had his
27th birthday and as he seems to get older, I seem to stay the same young
age. Seems like just the other day he
was 4 years old and listening to his favorite musical tape about a little
grublet. One day, the grublet was having
difficulty learning a Bible promise. But
an older and wiser character said, “It really is very simple,” and then went on
to teach the little grublet a truth in God’s word with a song.
Many times that little
phrase comes back to my mind when I make some truth in God’s Word too
difficult. I can often hear the Spirit
of God quietly say, “It really is very simple,
Recently as I watched
myself in a vision of revelation, I felt every ounce of inner-peace drain right
out of me. I was standing alone as a
crowd of Christians ran by me in a large cloud of dust, noise, and physical
energy, leaving me . . . watching. As I stood there, I felt so alone and
rejected and wondered, “Why would my Christian brothers and sisters ignore me
so completely and move on down the road closer to heaven, leaving me - watching?” As I stood there, I felt like that little
grublet must have felt when he was learning a new lesson and it was anything
but -- simple. Standing there seemingly
alone, I heard someone beside me.
Turning, I saw my Lord looking at me, tenderly smiling.
“I thought LORD you were
with them,” I said with question in my voice.
“All else seems empty as you discover that truly living is to know My
love,” He spoke, without hearing my remark, or so I thought.
Then He spoke again, “Do you ever wonder why you can’t seem to go
with the crowd every time they run by with some new experience or some new
place to find answers? You are clothed and set apart with heavenly garments, My child.”
That simple lesson -- which I was making difficult --
begins in Ephesians chapter 5, concerning the things improper for God’s holy
people. Reading verses 25-27, “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up
for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the
Word, and to present her to Himself as a radiant church, without stain or
wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.”
Removing stains from clothes takes different kinds of
shaking, pounding or movement in water mixed with a cleansing agent. Removing wrinkles from clothes requires heat
pressed against the wrinkle to smooth it out.
So in the natural, we wash and iron clothes to make them clean and
fresh. Let us then relate to a
supernatural washing and ironing by the Holy Spirit. As He shakes and refines us in the
circumstances of our lives, we are cleansed by
God’s word also proclaims
in Isaiah 61:10, “I delight greatly in
the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of
salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness . . .” It would appear that there are garments of
salvation to be put on for covering
the soul, as clothing for our spirit.
The garments of salvation belong to God’s redeemed and the robe of righteousness
belongs to those who will live by God’s standards. Another interesting point is that there are
several garments for us to put on, but only one robe. Father God clothes us with the robe of
righteousness as a symbol of new beginning to lift up a standard of complete
oneness in Him.
In Colossians chapter 3
we see characteristics for holy living.
In verse 12 God says, “. . .
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and
patience.” And in verses 9 and 10, “. . . take off your old self with its
practices and put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the
image of its Creator.” Then we can
do as verse 14 says “. . . over all these
virtues put on love.” Could this
verse be describing our robe of righteousness as we, “continue to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, for it is
God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose”?
(Philippians 2:12-13)
In the spirit, the Lord
showed me there would be people standing before Him on judgment day wearing
garments so soiled, stained and wrinkled you would not recognize them as having
once been their garments of salvation.
They never allowed Him to fully wash them with the water of His words,
working out their own salvation and in turn, growing up spiritually and
obtaining the robe of righteousness that comes by living singularly with one’s
eyes only on
Are we truly wearing
garments that please our Lord, or are we trying to cover over the stains and
wrinkles with a robe of our own making, always seeking and never coming to the
knowledge of the truth? Could it be that
we do not want to face the truth our Lord is trying to reveal to us about ourselves? The Father convicts us by revealing to us His
love, not showing us only the sin.
