Being a Billboard

Recently I moved to what I can only describe as Small Town USA. No chain restaurants, 2 hours to the nearest malls and people everywhere long to live out their lives like the men on Duck Dynasty. To get anywhere near civilization I have to drive down a divided highway that is filled with billboards, and one bank has about 4 filled in 20 miles. Each billboard looks similar: it has an everyday-looking person posing for a picture doing something they love. The tagline says 

"Bank with people you know." 

Yeah, the "you know" is insanely small, not to mention in cursive and light-orange so the sign looks to only read "Bank with people." The first several times I drove by, I chuckled and thought of other various creatures that would make entertaining tellers, since only this one allows you to bank with people, all because the message wasn't clear.
That started this train of thought: What do you advertise? Does your message confuse people? Do you look radically different on Sundays than you do during the week? Do your outfits advertise your body in a promiscuous way? Does your attitude at work on the worst of days advertise that Christ is your joy and peace? Or does it tell the world that your circumstances rule your responses?
 Paul drives the point home hard to the church at Colossae when he says, 

"Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry... and rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (Colossians 3:5, 8-10). 

Then continues a little later:

"Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another... Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity" (Colossians 3:12-14).

Let's break this down, and start with what we should do. Please notice that God first calls believers his "chosen people, holy and dearly loved." That must be and has always been the first step. Nothing you can do will earn God's favor. He cannot love you more or less depending on your actions. He loved you first and still does. It is not to earn his love that we should follow Paul's analogy and put on these clothes of compassion, kindness and love. It is because he first loved us that we are able to do anything. And that great of a love should bring a response from us.
Now for the ugly part. We need to kill off some bad habits. Christians are called to represent Christ. Take off your dirty clothes and put on new ones, but recognize that it is a process. "Being renewed" is in the present-progressive form (even in the original Greek). That means it is an ongoing process. No, you will not be completely new until you leave this life, but you can and should start the process now.
So with all your heart, be a billboard and don't confuse others with the message you're sending. Don't do it to earn God's favor, he already showed his love and favor for you when he sent his only Son, Jesus, to die on the cross. Instead, be a billboard out of gratitude for that incredible act and to show off his light and love to the world. Let's be clear and beautiful billboards for Christ. Take some time today and figure out what you're advertising and how clear your message is to the world.