In Colossians Paul offers a strategy to help us live for God day by day by putting on the new man:
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:12-17; 3:10)
Scripture teaches that we are to imitate Christ’s compassionate, forgiving attitude. To achieve this, we must allow God’s love for us to guide our life. Then love must be the motivating power to guide your life:
Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. (John 14:21; Col. 3:14).
When we abide in Christ’s Spirt the peace of Christ rules in our heart :
The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. (John 14: 26-27; Col. 3:15)
Abiding in Christ obedient to His Word at all times prompts us to be thankful to the Father in Jesus name, not just annually on Thanksgiving, but daily. (Col. 3:16, 15, 17).
All the virtues that Paul encourages us to develop are perfectly bound together by love (Colossians 3:14). As we clothe ourselves with these virtues, the last garment we are to put on is love which holds all of the others in place. To pursue any list of virtues without love will lead to distortion, fragmentation, and stagnation. (1 Corinthians 13:3).