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Mask of the Great Deceivers: How Maturity in Christ Deals with Hypocrisy in the Church |
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February 20 th, 2009 |
Volume 4, Issue 6 |
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If you want to encourage, donations of any amount are appreciated - GH In This Issue
- Think It Through: Why Do We Wear Masks in the First Place - Take It To Heart: When Do We Really Take Our Masks Off? - Take It To The Street: The Power of Christians "Coming Out of Their Closets " and Transforming Over Hiding (While Judging) and/or Indulging (While Justifying) - The Moral Hypocrisy of the Biblebelt - Young People Leaving Hypocrisy, Not the Traditional Church by Lillian Kwon - Examine Yourselves by Paul Washer (audio-visual) - Hypocrisy by Stanley Toussaint (video) Blogs On Hypocrisy and Moral BS from Experimental Theology Cartoon: Moral Standards and Hypocrisy from Thoughts Out Loud (How can you do a piece on wearing masks and not have a political cartoon in it? It's unAmerican.) Emerging Hypocrisy from Infinitum Non Capax Infiniti (This is an article on hypocrisy in the Emerging Church and its critics. It is a good example of the value of blogging in the church today and listening to one another for accurate rather than just reactionary comments.) News Pray first of all for all men - one article at a time [1 Timothy 2:1]. Read an article and pray in light of it.
Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem [Psalm 122:6] - one article at a time. Read an article and pray in light of it. Articles
Hypocrisy in the Bible from Naves Topical Bible Dictionary Online The Moral Hypocrisy of the Bible Belt (As I have mentioned elsewhere, the enemies of Christian faith are well-educated and watching us. Although they can be just as judgmental toward us as we have been toward them, it does not hurt to hear the truth about ourselves when they speak it. While leftist and liberal may be the bias motive for reporting, where the truth is speaking we should take note, humble ourselves and ask God how we can unmask ourselves to find healing - GH) Hypocrites in the Church by Denny Smith The Mask Exercise by Jerry L. Hampton (This is an excellent way to introduce the concept of "pseudocommunity" in the church and have a discussion on why we wear masks in our community) Young People Leaving Hypocrisy, not the Traditional Church by Lillian Kwon of the Christian Post (An excellent article describing what a young generation is looking for in the church today) Audio
Discipleship Library from The Navigators
Video
The Masks from The Twilight Zone (Rod Serling demonstrated that we truly are "like God, knowing good and evil" [Genesis 3:25] in this ode to the masks that surround our dying elders.) Mask by Stopheruhaul (It gives the biblical view of masks without giving new life in Jesus as the answer) Examine Yourselves by Paul Washer Music
This Mask I Wear by Strangers in Paradise (This song is beautiful and heart breaking at the same time. It clearly states why we wear masks until we are able to die to the pains of life and dance in the Spirit on things best left in a grave. What is so sad is that the hearts of men and women feel and sing their pain so well, without a Deliverer to take the pain away and heal the damage done.)
Online Libraries "I know no author who is worthy the honour of being followed absolutely and without reserve." John Newton (1725-1807) Christian Classics Ethereal Library The Evangelical Christian Library
Free Bible Study Software Bible Explorer (with over 200 Free Books)
Unmasking the Masks of Faith We all need somebody to talk to. It would be
Christianity is not just a mental assent that certain doctrines are true -- not even that the right doctrines are true. This is only the beginning. This would be rather like a starving man sitting in front of great heaps of food and saying, "I believe the food exists; I believe it is real," and yet never eating it. It is not enough merely to say, "I am a Christian," and then in practice to live as if present contact with the supernatural were something far off and strange. Many Christians I know seem to act as though they come in contact with the supernatural just twice -- once when they are justified and become a Christian and once when they die. The rest of the time they act as though they were sitting in the materialist's chair. Francis Schaeffer, Death in the City (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press: 1969) 134
Men take more pains to mask than to mend. Benjamin Franklin
Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. James Baldwin
Virtue has a veil, vice a mask. Victor Hugo
He reminds me of the man who murdered both his parents, and then when sentence was about to be pronounced pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. Abraham Lincoln
There are two sorts of hypocrites: one that are deceived with their outward morality and external religion; many of whom are professed Arminians, in the doctrine of justification: and the other, are those that are deceived with false discoveries and elevations; who often cry down works, and men's own righteousness, and talk much of free grace; but at the same time make a righteousness of their discoveries and of their humiliation, and exalt themselves to heaven with them. Jonathan Edwards
Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise. Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it? I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;... In every man there is something which to a certain degree prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself; and this may be the case in so high a degree, he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself. But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love, and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all. Soren Kierkegaard
Our insistence on maintaining an image is the reason most believers rarely confess bitterness, jealousy, addiction, lust, self-hate, greed, and anger at God over tragedy or suffering. We keep simmering - simmering beneath the surface. If that is the case in our lives, then people at church really don't know us. They know the persons we play when we're there. Therein lies the rub: If we're not our true selves while walking around the church, then who are we when worship starts? At what point does the performance stop and the real believer start? Mark Hall on Happy Plastic People and writing the Casting Crowns song, Stainglass Masquerade, from Lifestories: Finding God's Voice of Truth Through Everyday Life, 148
THE MASK I WEAR
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would not experientially "know" any shame or the distinction between good and evil and God would simply love them as they were without any judgments upon them for being or doing a good or an evil thing. Their trust in His word would be their protection against experiencing good and evil in life. Experiential knowledge of good and evil would create an accountability before God that brought judgment and consequences for action. God would rather have a relationship with the children created in His image based upon trust and love instead of judgment for wrongs done. Remove all basis for judgment and healthy relationship can return and remain.
Hideous Hidings The serpent's mission was simple and direct. Create a sense of doubt toward God in the woman's mind that would lead her to logically deny God's care for her once she committed herself by faith against the Word of God found in the original protective statement to Adam about the fruit. "Do not eat of it, lest you die" [Genesis 2:16-17]. The devil is a great philosopher. He loves to trick us and then treat us in light of a faulty logic he manipulated us to think in the first place. Eve added to God's original words to Adam and set herself up for the fall. In reasoning with the serpent she said, ""From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die'" [Genesis 3:3]. By adding her own words as God's word to her, she set herself up for further lack of trust in God's original word. Now you can see the danger in throwing around that all too often used phrase by some Christians, "God told me." If we add our own false assumptions to what God really has told us, and then commit ourselves to our own false reasonings, we are setting ourselves up for a fall down the road. God never said Adam and Eve could not touch the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. God just said, "Don't eat it." So when Eve followed her own faulty reasoning based upon a slight addition to God's true truth, her twisting of that truth led her into more unbelief in God. When she touched the fruit she did not die. Therefore, that must mean that she could eat the fruit and not die too, right? Wrong. Her faulty reasoning through a twisted addition to God's word deceived her into thinking God could not be trusted. How often do we "add" false assumptions to our circumstances, reasonings based upon unnecessary fears, unfounded doubts toward others given to us by someone else, and other forms of self-deception that lead us into horribly bad choices in our relations of faith toward others? This was Eve's downfall. She simply chose to trust in the false logic of another person and then added to that logic her own self-deceptive thoughts based upon seeds of suspicion that led her to make the wrong choice before God and her spouse. First we think the wrong thoughts in opposition to the truth as we know it. Next, we emotionally attach ourselves to the new supposed "truth" [line of reasoning] we are going to follow in opposition to the truth as we know it. Finally, we begin making free choices against the freedoms we had in the first place in order to follow our faulty reasonings. Adam and Eve had complete freedom to eat of any other fruit in the garden, but they allowed the Serpent's rational doubts toward God to lead them away from their freedoms and focus them on a seeming limitation that was really just a stop sign to prevent them from experientially eating from a poisonous deadly fruit. It is "lack of trust" that causes all children to touch the stove burner when Mom and Dad say, "Don't touch it, lest you burn." The first part of Adam and Eve that died was their human spirit as the means of an intimate relationship to God's Spirit. Their experiential knowledge of going against what they knew was right led to their expectation of the rejection and judgment God predicted - their death. They assumed by their knowledge of the evil they had done that they deserved consequential judgment of some kind. And this "fear of judgment" in our flesh has been in the nature of mankind from the beginning [Romans 5:12]. This need to hide our wrongs out of fear of the judgment of God or others has been in us since the creation of mankind in God's perfect image and the death of that image through unbelief in God's original word. There are only two ways to deal with this "fear of judgment" without God's help. One way is to do away with the sense of fear by hardening your heart to any belief in a "Judge" for wrongs at all and become an atheist. The other way is to try and make up for known wrongs and their impending judgments by working hard to do as many good things as possible to appease God for wrongs done. There is only one thing wrong with this line of thought - two rights do not do away with a just judgment for wrongs done. No amount of earned "goodness" will take away the "evilness" that deserves a just punishment. So to save themselves from the expected judgment from God to come, what did Adam and Eve do when God approached them for a continued relationship? They ran from it in fear and shame and created their own masked belief system to deal with their present sense of inadequacy.
Adam and Eve 's terminal death had digressed from the innate knowledge of a Spirit-to-spirit connection with God, which was now broken, to another form of death altogether - psychological death. The faulty reasoning of the Serpent which they had trusted to their own destruction, a reasoning that said, "Doubt God. Don't trust Him" now began to decay their psychological make-up. First they were derailed at the mental level by a faulty logic. Next they were derailed at the emotional level by fear. Emotionally, they were now being led by their fears of judgment and its consequences. The concept that a faith in God would take all this away never entered their mind because they had already made a faith commitment to not believe in God's word. Their unbelief in God, or should we say their twisted new faith - focus on themselves - was still blinding them and the innate sense of deserved judgment was emotionally manipulating them into hiding behaviors. So how did they "fix" their situation in unbelief? By covering their nakedness with fig leaves [Genesis 3:7-10] to mask their sense of shame. Their solution to facing truth about themselves before God and each other was to wear masks to cover their now "known" naked errors. Our pride in doing what is right and our shame in knowing we have failed ourselves or others are directly related to the masks we wear with each other daily. We fashion masks of self-protection daily when we are devoid of love and trust in the world around us.
Addicts R Us Having worked with addicts of all kinds, I can say that addiction is simply this - the fixation of the mind on one idolatrous thing - that which I am not supposed to do [like drugs, alcohol, or food] or that which I am supposed to do [like work for workaholism, the Bible for bibliolatry, or "the Church" for ecclesiolatry]. A hearty and full confidence in "This feels good," with a mental-emotional commitment to it results in the emotional need, out of fear, to cover up what the person knows is wrong with the behavior as they seek the pleasure in the behavior itself [which is often just a chemical rush that stimulates the pleasure zones of the body in some way]. A variety of "hiding" cover-ups to keep their idolatrous behaviors going then becomes a lifestyle which we have labeled the "addictive lifestyle." These addictions can have the appearance of good or evil. But as obsessive and compulsive security blankets, they become idols for enslavement. But Adam and Eve were the first addicts to allow a faulty belief system and its resulting spiritual, psychological, and physical corruption through fear and cover-ups to rob them of the freedoms that God gave from the beginning. Formal addicts to drugs, alcohol, and sex are no different than the common addictions of gossip, out-bursts of anger, greed, power over others, and any other thing you can think of that will own a person's identity at the core of their being - a hardened heart through Sin's self-deceptions. Only a return to identity with the wholesome personal God revealed in biblical scripture will set us free from an identity with any other thing in God's creation that gives pleasure while at the same time robbing us, and those related to us, of life itself. It really doesn't matter if it is experiential knowledge of a piece of fruit from a very powerful but forbidden tree, or a mental-emotional-physical buzz from some other aspect of God's creation concerning our work or play time. Without a truly intimate relationship with God to control our incredible passions created in us by God himself, we all get off on our favorite idols in one way or another. This is what Jesus' death on the cross for our sinful errors and His resurrecting Spirit in us by a "new birth" are all about. God wants to reverse the life-to-death process in us begun by Adam and Eve and return us to the eternal inheritance we had originally in intimacy with Him by faith in His word.
Now I Am Hidden, I Don't Want To Be Found But many do not want to take off their masks of self-defense and openly and honestly deal with their personal evils in the light of truth about them. So the entire world is easily manipulated by the knowledge of their own good and evil and an innate need to keep up appearances that accentuate the apparent good and diminish the possibly evil. Those who are really good at this are the devilish serial killers and other sociopath's in our midst. Those who are really bad at this are the stupid criminals and naive immature children among us. And somewhere in-between are the rest of us with our hard-hearted unbroken defense systems well in place or a soft-hearted compassion in humility that understands what it means to finally "walk in the Light, as He is in the Light" with transparent honesty. But it is through these emotional fears of being "found out" that we create masks of persona which will hide from others what needs to be transformed by a healing force beyond ourselves. Something has got to take away the fears of being found out, or we carry them to our grave wearing masks of so-called "perfection" that only hide the hollowness inside and rob us of a genuine and authentic intimacy with God and others in the light of truth.
Now That I Am Found, Can't I Stay Hidden? This is the curse of now living like God, knowing good and evil [Genesis 3:22]. We have full knowledge of the heights of good and the depths of evil [and where we don't, our modern media informs us about it in multiple ways]. But this does not take away our fears and our shame at knowing experiential evil and dealing with its consequences. And when a person comes to Jesus Christ in a true "new birth" spiritually, this only begins an unveiling process that undoes what Adam and Eve began in their unbelief which results in our unbelief. If the process of death, resulting from a sin of doing what we know to be wrong, was to kill the human spirit, corrupt the psychological make-up and then finally bring the body to the grave, the process of life in Jesus must be to renew the human spirit, recreate the psychological make-up, and strengthen the body as much as possible until the resurrection unto life that Jesus promises after death. So this means that a return to life will mean facing my corruptions of spirit, my mental-emotional corruptions, and even my physical corruptions with an attitude of openness and honesty. As my sins come into the light, I can find a healing transformation that is pleasing in God's sight by God's power and not by my own fleshly efforts to try and make up for wrongs I have done or deny God in some way so I don't have to deal with my failings before him. In other words, the process of life in Jesus will be a continual unveiling of, cleansing, and transformation from my old lifestyle of committing errors that I know are wrong and then trying to cover them up as best I can with some kind of mental ["my philosophy of"], emotional ["my feelings about"] or willful ["my want-to's don't want to"] mask. Until our hearts are living a whole-life perspective in relation to choices to do what we know is wrong, without living to cover these wrongs up in some way, we keep ourselves in the state that Adam and Eve was in - self-justifications in fear of being found out while pursuing what we know is wrong in the first place. We keep our masks on out of fear.
Take It To Heart: When Do We Really Take Our Masks Off?
We need others to care about us as much as they need us to care about them. So we must all admit that "in Adam" or "in the flesh" or "in my sin nature" or whatever you want to call it, we are all plagued by being like God, knowing good and evil, and not being like God - lacking in mercy and grace for ourselves and others. Our knowledge of good and evil in us causes us to hide in shame without the needed healing that comes from confession, forgiveness, and encouragement to keep going on as we transform into someone stronger that we have never been before. Our masks hinder our real growth in maturity. Our knowledge of good and evil in others is what drives our comparative pride, our jealousy, our envy, our gossip, and our constant focus on scandals "out there" that we can sit in judgment on in others as we are enthroned on our knowledge of right and good in our hearts - whether we live that right and good ourselves or not. Just knowing good and evil, like God, gives us a sense of "God-likeness" that we can sit in self-righteous judgments on others because they do not measure up to what we think we know is "right." "How dare they . . . !" Just watch the nightly news or your favorite talk shows to see this spirit expressed from every side in the flesh of Adam.
Sin Made Me Do It Sin, the principle of missing the mark or rebelling against any known or accepted standard, uses our knowledge of good and evil against us from within our conscience. If Sin can keep us focused on the evil within ourselves it can sink us into depressions of all kinds as we lose sight of any good in us. This is exactly what keeps an addict in continuous bondage. "White" becomes the pleasure of our addiction and "Black" becomes whatever it takes to keep the pleasure of the addiction alive. The addict stays in a Yo-Yo state of his "White" [seeking the personal pleasure] against his "Black" [whatever evil he has done against what h/she knows to be good]. In locking the addict into these all-or-nothing extremes, s/he becomes enslaved to a judgmental self-righteousness upon self and others. This is why so many addicts are critical by nature - whether they are food addicts, drug addicts, alcohol addicts, God addicts, or Bible addicts. Self-justification demands that someone take blame - anyone but me. Anyone but but us. Everyone outside our centers of being but no one inside them. Self-righteous hypocrisy is the root nature of the flesh in Adam - for the religious and nonreligious. Furthermore, if Sin in our flesh can keep us focused on the evils of others, it can keep us blinded to our own weaknesses in personal pride as we exalt ourselves over others, losing sight of any good that exists in them. Knowing good and evil makes us into critics and judges of ourselves and others. Only a Spirit and/or spirits of mercy and grace from some source outside of ourselves will keep us from falling prey to Sin's self-deceptions inside us based upon our knowledge of good and evil.
Our hearts become hardened as we live in a continuous self-righteous judgment upon ourselves and others because of Sin deceitfully leading us to overlook and ignore our own knowledge of evil within us as we constantly judge and condemn all those around us in a god-like manner that we have no right to usurp from God himself [Romans 14:10; James 4:11-12]. As a result of this constant "deceitfulness of Sin" working in us we become discouraged with ourselves and with others daily. We need the encouragement from others that says "I love you no matter what." We need the support that says, "I am there for you in your struggles with addictions of any kind." We are motivated and driven by people who say, "I struggle with the deceitfulness of Sin in myself just like you. We need each other as we grow in grace and mercy. Let's confess to each other and pray for one another so God can heal us." The bonds of communion in true love destroy the bondage of Sin in all of us because of our knowledge of Good and Evil gone wild.
From Hard Hearts to Softened Hearts Only as we soften our hearts toward each other can the deceitfulness of Sin within be defeated. The more mature among us, whose hearts are genuinely broken and sensitive to others, have the compassion of Jesus to be sympathetic and empathic to those suffering deep inner turmoil. The unbroken and hard hearted remain in judgmental mode with their "god-like" knowledge of good and evil, condemning and pointing their fingers as they never condemn or judge themselves in like manner.
The Unveiling of the Gospel The Gospel is unveiled to the eyes of the believing when God's Spirit begins to shine into the heart of men and women by faith. As this faith grows, the veil of unbelief disappears more and more over time. The apostle Paul compares this to a light coming on in the heart and then shining ever brighter.
Unbelief keeps a veiled mask over the eyes. Only by faith in Christ can the eyes be opened by the power of God's Spirit from within. Once the mask of unbelief is removed, then we can begin removing the masks used daily to hide our sins from ourselves and each other. Through Christ sin is taken away [John 1:29; Romans 6:6]. So once belief begins, we can begin taking off our masks to reveal a growing purity through transformation by God's power alone. Peter affirms Paul's analogy of a "day star" shining ever brighter in the heart as our masks to hide sin are removed.
The Cleansing of the Gospel Peter does not assume that his readers have been fully illuminated from within yet at their core being. The heart must feed on the written Word of God as a guiding light until the living Word of God by the Spirit illuminates our person in the core of our being. We really do not realize how hard our hearts are before God in fleshly unbelief. As we walk in this light, we become more and more honest about our sin and through confession, by the blood of Christ, we are cleansed [1 Peter 1:2; Hebrews 9:14, 10:19-22, 29; 1 John 1:8-10].
The Transformation of the Gospel
The old self is being corrupted in accord with deceitful desires from within - things we use masks to cover up. But as the spirit of our minds is renewed, we change into an image of something we have never been before - the image of a righteous and holy self created in the likeness of God. We are not equal to God by any means, except perhaps in our experiential knowledge of Good and Evil which causes us to die a slow death [Genesis 3:22]. God, being the source of all life, cannot die with such knowledge. But Christ in us, by His Spirit, transforms our inner most being so that when we take our masks off, there is something beautiful underneath created by God's power in us and not by our own power to change ourselves. Our faith that masks are no longer necessary communicates a true understanding of the Gospel of Jesus - the transforming power from within.
The laying aside of our masks is part of the cleansing process of change. Layer after layer of false imaging for self-protection must be removed as we face the shame of the old self and allow the Gospel to transform us into something we have never been before. This is why one of the goals of all Christian teaching is an unhypocritical faith [1 Timothy 1:5]. Hypocritical masks worn in fear of being found out are common to the flesh of Adam in and outside the church. But in Christ the masks can come off as we are completed in Him.
Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906)
We Wear the Mask We wear the mask that grins and lies, Why should the world be over-wise, We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries We Wear The Mask, A Video by Kayyristenx
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Hanging up our masks which are natural to us "in Adam" has been one of the major goals of Christian teaching since the first century. I will repeat Paul's personal training of Timothy in this matter.
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Unmasking the Reality of Christian Hypocrisy
Bible translations have obscured reality in this verse while the world has continued to point the finger at our hypocrisies in the church throughout the ages. The Gospel assumes that hypocrisy is characteristic of Christians until they are transformed by healthy teaching that helps them remove their masks without fear.
But well meaning Bible translations have obscured the clear transliteration from the Greek in both the Majority Text and the Earliest Manuscripts.
KJV - This translation based upon the Received Greek Text, translates anhupocritos "unfeigned." In King James day [1600s] this would have been clearly understood as hypocrisy in one's faith. But as English changed, approaching the 20th century, the old phrase was retained in the text as no one used the word "unfeigned" any longer.
NKJV - This translation uses an English word with a Latin root as its base and translates unhypocritical as "sincere." "Sincere" is from the Latin sincerus meaning "whole, pure, genuine" and is a very good statement of the meaning of anhupocritos conceptually. But it kills the concept of not wearing a mask which the original Greek word carries. The NASB, ESV, NIV and NET Bibles all translate the word in 1 Timothy 1:5 using "sincere" as well - probably as a matter of translator tradition more than anything else.
This word is used by Paul and Peter in relation to an unhypocritical love in two places [2 Corinthians 6:6; Romans 12:9]. This would be an interesting study for believers as well. What is hypocritical love in the church? How is it expressed? In the same way, how does a hypocritical faith express itself throughout the church?
We hear about Christians being hypocrites in their faith all the time. The understanding of a "hypocritical" faith vs. an "unhypocritical" faith is needed in the Christian community as well as in our apologetics of the faith all the time. Wouldn't the simple transliteration from the original language be more telling in today's language?
Greek = anhupocritos
English = unhypocritical
The Apologetics of an Unhypocritical Faith
A plain English transliteration captures the meaning of the word in modern English and cuts to the heart of every Christian's need at the same time. If you told someone the Bible says that one of the key goals in Christian teaching is learning how to live an unhypocritical faith, you then accomplish three things apologetically.
1. You admit with most people that there is hypocrisy in the Church and you don't try to skirt it or ignore its existence.
2. You can explain that until a Christian matures in their faith through healthy teaching, they may not know how to take off their masks yet, like the rest of the hypocrites in the world outside the Church. As a result, in their immaturity as Christians, they continue to be an embarrassment to Jesus Christ in the popular culture.
3. You also open the door honestly to everyone's need to remove their masks about sinful issues hidden inside. You leave an opening for discussing the Gospel of Jesus and how it can deal with hidden issues inside all of us.
A goal of healthy Christian teaching, according to Paul, is that of helping Christians take off their masks as they grow in their faith. There is a kind of faith that wears masks. And there is a kind of faith which does not wear masks. Knowing the difference is important to a genuine and wholesome faith.
A key goal in Christian teaching is how to have faith in Jesus without wearing masks of hypocrisy. If only all of us had been trained in this from the first day we trusted Christ. We wouldn't have spent so much time in our fearful insecurities playing judgment games with each other to prove "whose on top" with the brightest and best Christian mask we could wear to hide the carnal issues hidden deep inside that we didn't [or do not] want to deal with in our flesh.
Coming Out of Our Christian Closets
With the blood of Jesus to cleanse us and the Spirit of God to transform us, we can begin to follow James' leadership in confessing our sins to one another and praying for one another that we may be healed. Let me repeat that.
James 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
Some Christians, with deep emotional scars and clinging addictions may not have the personal righteousness before God necessary to bring about healing in their lives on their own. They are still playing hiding games with themselves and others. They need someone more righteous than themselves to pray for their healing. So we have two very practical steps to taking our masks off with each other.
1. Confess your sins to one another.
2. Pray for one another.
How transparent with others about your sins are you? If you are not, is that an indication that you are still wearing allot of masks since the day you trusted in Christ and you have not dealt with your own sins over the years honestly so as to have a story to tell of change into Jesus' image over time?
Does pride keep us from confessing our sins to one another? Of course - especially if we live in fear of being judged by others instead of being prayed for by them. Christian community should be a place where humble honesty about sins finds others identifying with us instead of judging us. We are not to wear our sins on our sleeve, but we are to communicate them to one another for prayerful attention. Only a humble fellowship of honest sinners growing in grace that is in Jesus can do this. How humble is your church community?
Authentic Christians make the Gospel of forgiveness with understanding the center of what they do and why they do it. The Christian that continues to wear masks is still trying to do in the flesh what only Jesus' blood and Spirit can do by Grace - save face without any honest confessions of weakness needing God's grace in the moment [2 Corinthians 12:9-10].
What If Our Masks Began to Disappear?
What if the world saw believers openly confessing their sins to each other and praying for each other instead of pointing the finger at others, including unbelievers? What power would be released in the Church before a watching world if we just came clean in light of the Gospel we preach and admitted we were sinners who still struggle with sins that need confession and cleansing. If we say we have no sins to deal with any longer in Jesus, we are deceiving our selves. We are deluded in some way [1 John 1:8]. If we make some claim that we have not sinned, then we make God into a liar, whose Word says that all have sinned and fall short of God's glory in some way [Romans 6:23; 1 John 1:10].
And through this confession to one another and prayer for one another, what if the world watched us all being healed from our particular sins over time, seeing real changes in the Christian community that is doing away with our hypocrisy which we have been so well known for? What if our ability to be real and genuine about Sin dwelling in our flesh gives the unbeliever the ability to put away their fears of judgment so they can begin to be honest with God and others about their sins as well?
What if taking our Christian masks off and coming out of our sinful closets to transform into something we have never been before by prayer, began a wave of conviction upon an unbelieving world that elevated the cross of Christ far above any steeple on a church or pendent worn around a neck?
Gary Hinchman
Stained Glass Masquerade by Casting Crowns
Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain
But if the invitation's open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain
On our stained glass masquerade
Hypocrisy by Stanley Toussaint
Stanley Toussaint is senior professor emeritus of Bible Exposition and adjunct professor in Bible Exposition at Dallas Theological Seminary