Killing The Old Man

Colossians 3:1-11 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

1 So if you have been raised with the Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth. 3For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God. 4 When the Messiah, who is your life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. 5 Therefore, put to death whatever in you is worldly: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these, God's wrath comes on the disobedient, 7 and you once walked in these things when you were living in them. 8 But now you must also put away all the following: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and filthy language from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off  the old man  with his practices 10 and have put on  the new man, who is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of his Creator.  11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all.

I have made great strides in my spiritual life of just over a decade, however I never finished off the old me. I left him for dead and he is greatly weakened. Yet you can still find dark corners in my soul and there he hides. He hangs on and tries to renew his strength while not alerting me to his presence. When I approach him he growls very sinisterly and a voice says wait if you get rid of him how will you defend yourself. Because, somehow at some point I have become convinced that in order to fight and defend I needed that beast inside me. So he stayed secured behind that simple fallacy. Recently I was very sharply reminded of my mortality. This keen awareness of death caused a self inspection that shined a light on the old man. I am shamed at my inability to kill him and the impact he still had on my Christian life. Be vigilant my fellow Christians and make sure that you kill the old you. Our life is with Jesus Christ and we cannot mature past a certain point while the old man still hangs on to life. Trust me when I say it is easier to kill the old self when it is strong and facing you than when it's hiding.