Masquerade

This has been heavy on my heart lately and for some reason has been a recurring theme in my conversations with people and in circumstances as of late (without me bringing it up). For instance, the other day Mark and I were going into Mardel (a Christian bookstore) to get some stuff for the wedding party. As we approached the door Mark slapped (not in a bad way) the upper part of my thigh. Ok, might as well have been my butt but anyway. I told him to behave since we were walking into Mardel and he said to me, "Oh that's right. We have to keep up our impressions!" Here's the deal: Why was I so concerned about it when walking into Mardel? Would I have been as concerned if we were walking into a theatre or Best Buy? The answer is yes, but the point goes much deeper. Here's the shame: I felt like if anyone walking into Mardel, in Mardel or driving by Mardel would have thought less of us because of his gesture. If he had a wedding band on, that would be different but he doesn't, nor do I, so I was worried about what the other "Christians" would think. I hadn't really thought about what "non-believers" would think. That was more of an after thought.

Since when do we feel like we have to be perfect? Since when did putting on a mask to go to church become acceptable? What does my mask look like? How is it percieved by my Maker?

Maybe we should have Life Groups based on people's struggles so that we could all benefit from those who have been there - so we could truly be built up and edified instead of carrying the burden of hiding our struggles from the rest of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Are they not fighting the battle also? Are they not just as much of a sinner as we are? YES! So why do we spend SO much time trying to hide... and I think the majority of the time we're not just hiding our struggles and sins from our peers but we actually think we can hide them from God as well! Are we that conceited? A lady told my mom once that my ex-husband and I needed to be separated and not divorced - that we should just live in separate houses but not do the dirty deed of getting a divorced. Did she think that would somehow redeem ourselves? That somehow God wouldn't know the difference? Good grief.

When interviewing singles minister candidates for PC (the church I was serving at) one asked each of us in the room what our vision for the singles group was. I distinctly remember saying that it would be great if our group of singles was so close, felt so loved by one another and so accepted regardless of faults that any of us could stand up at any time and ask for prayer or share a praise. I think half the room thought I was a lunatic and the other half thought that because I mentioned the word "share" and had mentioned the words "the Spirit" that I'd gone off the deep end.

As Romans 6 speaks of in the following passage:
"1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.

8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

Slaves to Righteousness
15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!"

No. We as Christians are not called to sin, but we cannot help the fact that we are sinners. We are sinners because we are not gods - we do not have God's deity. When we accept Christ and are baptised, we recieve the gift of the Holy Spirit but we are still sinners. God knows this. We should know this.

Why do I spend so much time beating myself up for things I did years ago? Why do I ask God for forgiveness when He can't remember what I'm talking about because He already forgave the sin? Is my faith so weak that I cannot actually believe that God could forgive me?

Paul prayed for God to take away his "thorn in the flesh" (whatever it was) and God would not. Paul then boasted that Christ is better made known through his weakness because God was seen through that (2 Corinthians 2:19 - "But [God] said to [Paul], "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I (Paul) will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

I'm just thinking that instead of walking around hiding the fact that we sin maybe we ought to just fess up to it. Why do I want to burden myself any more than I have to? After all, we really only find healing when our sin is exposed by the Light and we are willing to walk in the Light.

Once again, I must reiterate that I am not condoning the fact that people sin - only recognizing it in a healthy way because I think the way we (in the churches) have dealt with it is wrong somehow because we have been listening to Satan's lies instead of God's truth.

I think Satan sometimes uses the Truth to try and bind us but really Truth does set people free... we just have to be willing to be freed in that Truth.