Lately many people around my school Emmaus Bible College have asked me why I dress in ties, suits, or at the very least a polo. I have to respond to them often that it is largely out of respect but there is another reason, a glorious reason.
When I was 17 this is what I looked like. That picture up there was taken at Camp Elim in Colorado 2 months before I got saved. The photo is a signification of the old life. It signifies all that has gone before and is a helpful reminder to the fact that I remain a sinner saved only by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. At one point here on this walk with Jesus I went back to dressing like that and even acting like the guy you see up there. But I have to tell you the truth. The hardcore punk rocking snowboarder is dead. He is a dead man. The Ryan that obsessed every waking moment of every waking day about fresh tracks and the next lap through the park is dead. What do I mean when I say that? How can he be dead?
I believe the Bible is the inerrant infallible word of God and that it can be read objectively and authoritatively as the judge of all moral actions and is the bar that determines whether we are right with God or aren't so naturally, I refer to the Bible.
Romans 6:1-11
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it? Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised, is never to die again; death is no longer master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive to God in Jesus Christ.
Some people have said to me, I believe both to my damage and to their own, that if it makes you happy it must be what God wants, therefore, do it often and whenever because God wants to see us happy. This is only a half truth. Snowboarding at one point in time made me happy and photograpy currently makes me happy, but they don't fill me. There was a day when what made me happy was snowboarding and I did it all the time. The above photo is an example of doing all that makes you happy whenever and however you want.
But I disagree with that last statement even. I do think that we should do what makes us happy all the time as much as possible. But when I was saved I found something out. All of the old happinesses as ends to themselves no longer make me happy. Photography doesn't make me happy eternally. Baseball, hockey, snwoboarding, whatever, no longer pleases every sense in me. Would you not say he is dead? That old man? But now I rejoice in salvation, I rejoice that God would save a wretch like myself stuck in a pit of a hole dying quickly and immanently cruising towards certain death on a snowboard.
And thus my saying it is only a half truth comes to light. If all you can do or if all I can do, is just to do stuff that has no saving value and is bathed in triviality, we are lost. If you or I would rather go "do something fun" than swim in the Bible our joys are in the wrong place. If the Bible and prayer aren't fulfilling and all of life isn't somehow saturated with God's word than we have lost the true focus and are in a terrifying situation and should expect the eternal judgement of hell. This is not to say that people aren't sinners. I forgot my Bible for many months at one point and had even forgotten most of what was in it. But when you are saved, true joy is found nowhere but in God. Even photography is pervaded with it now. When I turn to think that it is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me, then the value of what I do goes away rapidly and the value of who Jesus is comes to light. All I do is press the button when I photograph now. I didn't make the trees, birds, waterfalls, or anything in my photographs but Christ has made them. Therefore Christ's beauties are far greater. It is not longer I who live but Christ lives in me. I am no longer satisfied just to press the button on a camera, I must be satisfied in God or I will not be satisfied. Sure being satisfied in God has a lot to do with using our talents and enjoying a hobby, but they aren't everything. And I fear lest they should be.
So friends, the garb that I wear is respect towards adults it is true, but it also signifies a death. The ultimate death of sin that will occur when I die and am swept away to dwell with the living Christ.
Staring at the light of the gospel of the glory of God with you,
R.D. Thompson