And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Paul wrote a letter to the Christians in Ephesus, a wealthy and influential city in what is now western Turkey. In the surrounding verses, he urges them to stop living according to their old habits — the way they lived before knowing Jesus — which he describes as corrupted by self-deception and craving. This verse is the positive flip side: instead of just taking something off, put something on. The new self isn't a self-improvement project you build from scratch; it's a new identity that God has already created. Righteousness means acting rightly toward others, and holiness means being wholly devoted to God — set apart and integrated, not fragmented. The word 'created' is deliberate: this transformation originates with God, not with your own willpower.
God, I know there's an old version of me that keeps showing up uninvited. Thank you that you've already made something new. Help me today to choose it — to put it on like I actually mean it, and keep choosing it when I forget. Amen.
There's a phrase that gets thrown around in personal development circles: "Just be yourself." It sounds liberating until you realize that "yourself" is sometimes impatient, sometimes small-hearted, sometimes the version of you that snaps at 6 PM when you're tired and everyone in the house is too loud. Paul isn't telling the Ephesians to be themselves — he's telling them to put on a self that God has already crafted. The new self isn't aspirational. It already exists. It's been created. Your job is to choose to wear it. The phrase 'put on' is deliberately active — it's morning language, like deciding what to wear before you face the day. And honestly, some days you'll forget. Some days you'll reach for the old stuff without even thinking about it. But the invitation is to notice, and choose again. Righteousness and holiness aren't museum words — they mean living in alignment with who God is: honest in how you treat people, whole in how you carry yourself. Not perfect. Just more and more oriented toward the God who made you new.
What do you think Paul means by the 'old self' versus the 'new self'? How would someone in first-century Ephesus — living in a culture shaped by Roman gods and Greek philosophy — have understood this kind of identity transformation?
In what areas of your life do you find it hardest to 'put on' the new self? Where does the old way of being keep showing up uninvited?
The verse says the new self was 'created to be like God in righteousness and holiness.' What does it do to your understanding of identity to know this new self is something God made — not something you manufacture through effort or willpower?
How might actively choosing to put on the new self change how you show up for the people closest to you — at home, in conflict, in the small daily moments that reveal who you actually are?
Identify one specific situation this week where you tend to default to the old self. What would putting on the new self look like in that exact moment — concretely and practically?
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
2 Corinthians 3:18
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
Genesis 1:26
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
Psalms 51:10
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Romans 12:2
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Romans 8:29
And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
Colossians 3:10
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
2 Corinthians 5:17
and put on the new self [the regenerated and renewed nature], created in God's image, [godlike] in the righteousness and holiness of the truth [living in a way that expresses to God your gratitude for your salvation].
AMP
and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.
ESV
and put on the new self, which in [the likeness of] God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.
NASB
and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.
NIV
and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.
NKJV
Put on your new nature, created to be like God — truly righteous and holy.
NLT
and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.
MSG