"You wear a mask for so long, you forget who
you were beneath it." Alan Moore. I could not but fully agree with this quote as it's profound and
thought provoking. Our life experiences force us to wear masks and with
constant overuse of that leads to a point we become unrecognizable to
ourselves. If we come across someone who is genuine and true to themselves,
it's like a breadth of fresh air in this fake world we live in.
The Bible says, “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful, a puzzle that no one can figure out. But I, God, search the heart and examine the mind. I get to the heart of the human. I get to the root of things. I treat them as they really are, not as they pretend to be.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 MSG. Our pretentions and deceptions are conceived in our heart, plans to follow through devised in our mind and eventually exhibit in our actions. Somehow, we convince ourselves that we can pretend to be someone else (with Christian overtones) and get away with it. Yes, it's easy to deceive, manipulate and fool humans, but can we really deceive God?
"Deceit fills hearts that are plotting evil; joy fills hearts that are planning peace!" Proverbs 12:20 NLT. In this verse, Bible is very clear that when you deceive you are already in the path of evil. The question arises, what makes us wear masked personalities? Is it our fear of rejection? Or is it that we have been hurt too many times for our goodness that we end up taking revenge by acting like a good person? Or is it that we are just pure evil and sold out for the devil that we go around manipulating and taking advantage of people?
Our deceptions are always translated in our actions or otherwise our works. If we read the book of Revelations, God says to five out of seven Churches, namely Ephesus, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea, "I know your works...". My dear brothers and sisters, why should God be focused and concerned about our works? Because each of us are the Church. It's not our buildings God is talking about. It's you and me and that should be a good enough reason to remove our masks or we will stand judged by Him. Our motives, our principles, our morals, our ethics should all stem from obeying and practicing the word of God.
The further we are away from God, correlates to the level of pretense we exhibit in our lives. The moment we use God for meeting our own will and desires, God is only a prop in our life. But when we truly surrender every area of our life to God, be transformed, we become genuine, unafraid of revealing our true self to the world. Can we like Apostle Paul dare the world saying, "Imitate me, as I also imitate Christ."1 Corinthians 11:1 CSB.
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