Putting on Christ

Meditations on

Staying in the Grace for Today 

March 26, 2026

Putting on Christ

“My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Galatians 2:20 

To become a Christian is to enter an altogether new identity, or as the Apostle Paul puts it, “And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). In the verse quoted above, Galatians 2:20, Paul reveals that ‘putting on Christ’ is a matter of making a conscious decision to ignore our natural instincts and choose to live our life by trusting Jesus to show us a new way to live. Paul pointed to this new way of living when he wrote to his friends in Rome,

Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of the law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit. (Romans 7:6b)

Jesus modeled life lived as a child of God, and as we are Christianoi, the people of Christ, he will empower us to do the same.

A good spiritual discipline is to pick one of the four Gospels and read it with the goal of discerning as many personality characteristics of Jesus as you can. After you have made your list, study it with the thought that Jesus wants you to embody those characteristics in your life; this is putting on Christ. A caveat: it is easier to identify the characteristics than it is to make them your own. This is because God wants to completely transform our lives, which means a complete reorientation of how we relate to God, ourselves and to other people. This is also why Paul used such hyperbole to describe how he ignored his flesh and trusted in Jesus instead: “My old self has been crucified with Christ. . . “

Some of the characteristics I have noted in Jesus’ personality include his acceptance of his feelings, simplicity of conversation, intimacy with his Abba, and humble obedience to his Abba’s will. Choosing to let God work these characteristics into our lives is choosing to take the road less traveled.

My Takeaway: Taking this road less traveled means reaffirming our choice, sometimes moment by moment. With each reaffirmation, we want to remember that ultimately “God is working in (us), giving (us) the desire and the power to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:13). This truth inspired Paul to affirm, “I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

Sē’lah

My book on prayer,

First Think, Then Pray

is now available on Amazon Kindle.

 

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

 

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

 

Copyright © 2026 by Alex M. Knight

 

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.