“Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ! — assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Before he called us, we were dead in our sin and without understanding. Our desires were wicked, not of Christ, and unpleasing to Christ. We were blind and gave ourselves up to the devil and his impulses.

As we are called to Christ, we are to put away this dead self, and put on the new self in Christ. We turn from our lying ways to speak truth in love. This is a love that does not seek to flatter or condone what is wicked, but that seeks what is best for the other according to Christ. We are free to be angry, but we are to turn it away before we sin. We are to use our words to build each other up in Christ, and not to harm or destroy. We are to forgive, and seek others’ forgiveness, as God forgives us in Christ.

We are to heed the Holy Spirit in us and to not let it despair. We will never deserve that holy gift, though we are to strive that it were not wasted on us.