1979 was a magical year to be four years old. You bounced around in your family’s barge-sized Chevy Impala, not worried about buckling up in the back seat, and you slurped water right from the garden hose, savoring the metallic tinge. Best of all, you zoomed through your house in your Wonder Woman Underoos, deflecting bad-guy bullets with the aluminum foil bracelets you just made.

Any girl could be star-spangled spectacular in the face of danger as long as she had her super suit.

Somewhere between four and forty, though, you can forget where you left your super suit. Believe me, I’ve been there. Like Frozone from The Incredibles, we wait until danger crashes past us before we scramble to find resources to save the day. (You know you just quoted the line in your head. Say it with me, “Honeeeeeeey, where is my super suit?”)

What? You didn’t know you even had a super suit much less where to look for it? Then, take a peek at seven places in Scripture that describe what’s ready and waiting for God’s wonder women to put on:

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Galatians‬ ‭3:27‬ 

Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. ‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭6:11‬ ‭

[You were taught] to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians‬ ‭4:23-24‬ ‭

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Colossians 3:12 

But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Romans 13:14

But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 1 Thessalonians‬ ‭5:8‬ ‭

And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:14

That’s a whole lot of reminders to put on what’s already waiting for us by virtue of our relationship with Christ!

From the moment we turn ourselves over to Christ, turning our backs on our old zombie lives of trying to fulfill and fix ourselves, we are immersed into all that He is. He makes our spirits fully alive and puts His own Spirit within us to comfort, guide, transform, and empower us. (Incidentally, water baptism symbolizes that spiritual change—while it’s not salvation itself, it’s an outward reminder of a spiritual reality, similar to the way a wedding ring symbolizes that a marriage took place. We are “baptized into Christ,” as the first verse on the list says, when we ask Him to become Savior and Lord. The physical baptism in water becomes a powerful reminder to ourselves and everybody else that through Jesus, we left our old life behind and now belong to God’s family.)

We first put on Christ so that our whole identity is reborn—we become new creations. We become the super heroes we were always meant to be, even if we don’t feel all that heroic yet, because Jesus starts a process of transforming us to be more like Him. After all, He’s the ultimate hero, the One who defeated sin and death. Each day, then, we get to put on a super suit of His making that lets us bring compassion, hope, bravery, humility, righteousness, faith, and love into our world. That’s better than Underoos any day!

How do we go about putting on–and keeping on–that super suit, though? In the next posts we’ll look at some practical ways to suit up in Christ so that we live with purpose, lead with grace, and love with whole hearts. See you next week, wonder women!

Houston-area ladies, are you looking for a way to jumpstart your fall? Join me beginning September 11th, for Outfit Your Soul, a 7-week class that will challenge us to be the kind of compassionate, loving, and effective community-builders God calls us to be. Registration details are HERE.