The Closet Gospel Part 2
- Janell Schiele
- Mar 15, 2018
- 2 min read

Imagine for me a dark confiding closet. One stocked with clothes that are old, threadbare and embarrassing imitations of the heavenly closet (The Closet Gospel Part 1). These clothes are ill-fitting, unflattering, ugly and trashy. Shoes are missing their mates, none of the accessories match. It's like someone went through the dump and put the findings in a closet.
Before Jesus came and gave everything for us this was our daily closet, the closet of self. We didn't have a choice, because of sin. However, now that we are new creatures in Christ we get to trade the self closet for the heavenly one. Before we do that we have to follow what Ephesians 4:22 says:
"Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life
and is corrupt through deceitful desires." -ESV
I find it interesting that it's up to us to take off the old self as well as put on the new. This can be quite a challenge for some. We have become so attached to some of the clothes in the self closet, because they have been with us for so long. It's like those old sweat pants you should throw away, but keep anyway because they got you through your first breakup. Sure, they're comfortable, but you still look like a slob.
Most people will keep a few articles from the old self closet and then try and hang them in the heavenly closet. Ephesians 4 gives us a bunch of examples from this self closet. Here are just a few (from TPT):
Corrupt logic (4:18)
Sexual obsession (4:19)
Dishonesty (4:25)
Anger (4:26)
Hateful speech (4:29)
Revenge (4:32)
Jesus makes it very clear that we cannot fuse the old and new closets:
"It's impossible for a person to serve two masters at the same time. You will be forced to love one and reject the other. One master will be despised and the other one will have your loyal devotion. It's no different with God and the wealth of this world. You must enthusiastically love one and definitely reject the other." - Luke 16:13 TPT
So it comes down to this: Which closet are we going to go with? The easy and practical answer is the heavenly one! But that means we have to take off everything that so easily entangles us (Hebrews 12:1) from the self closet. Theres no doubling up, you can't try and hide one under another, we have to completely discard the self closet. It takes work, but so does getting ready for a gala, in the end, it's all worth it.
~Janell
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