Kingdom Qualities Are Not Accessories

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." Colossians 3:12-14 NIV

A friend of mine recently shared these verses in a team meeting for those of us going on an England mission trip in less than 2 weeks. As she read them, I was struck by the word "clothe." Too often we treat virtues as accessories. We pick and choose which ones we will wear at convenient times. While listening to these verses I had the image of someone putting on their virtues like bracelets and choosing which would be worn for the day. While choosing, the person said, "I'll put on love and compassion. Hm. I won't wear humility today..." The person carelessly tossed aside the accessories that wouldn't be worn for the occasion.
      Accessories are easy to deal with. They can be taken off or set aside whenever we want. This however is not how God expects us to behave or treat these qualities. The word "clothe" is such a powerful one. Unlike accessories, clothes are less of an option. They are a covering and not simply an accent. God hates the way many of us treat the call to clothe ourselves in Kingdom qualities. He doesn't just want you to accent your character, He wants you to have a better one.
      People can tell when your outfit doesn't look good. All the accessories in the world couldn't hide it. Ironically, we expect the virtues we accessorize to hide the poor status of our character. We think adding on these qualities during convenient times will make us look better, but they won't because the main character you have outfitted yourself with is still covering more of you than your accessories.
      God's qualities are not optional trinkets. He wants us to look like Him, not pose as Him. We think Heaven is just going to be like some club where we can look the part and counterfeit what we need to get in, but if even clubs throw the people who don't belong out, why do we think that God's standard for getting into Heaven will be any lower. God isn't about to spend eternity with a bunch of fakes. He wants genuine people who continually clothe themselves in His image. Anything less than that is just a mockery of who He is.