Please Hear What I'm Not SayingThere is a great need for transparency in the Christian community. Our wonderful Lord Jesus has called us---his followers, his friends, and the sons and daughters of God---to live out our lives without any masks in this post-Christian society. The temptations to be someone we are not arise out of our flesh (the old sin nature), and the society around us. The temptations come when we no longer believe that "our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant...." At the moment of doubt we find ourselves being lured into a world of fantasies, some of which we have created in our hearts and minds, and others that the society around us has created, calling out to us to join them in their "masquerade ball." The Scriptures call that hypocrisy. A hypocrite is one who pretends to be someone they are not, plays a part, or pretends to be better than they are, having a pretense of virtue or piety.
Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear,
for I wear a mask, I wear a thousand masks,
masks I'm afraid to take off. And none of them are me.
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled, for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me,
within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command,
and that I need no one.
But don't believe me. Please!
Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech, and are not as Moses, who used to put a veil over his face that the sons of Israel might not look intently at the end of what was fading away.Paul is writing this thankful letter in response to the Corinthians' warm reception of the painful letter he wrote earlier (see 2 Corinthians 2:4). In that letter he rebuked the elders because they were not dealing with either the problem of sexual immorality within the church or the Jewish false teachers who were teaching the new Gentile believers, "Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved" (Acts 15:1). These false teachers were also discrediting Paul's authority, name, and ministry.
Evangelical Veil Productions! Pick one up now at quite a reduction;Christians are called by our indwelling Lord Jesus to choose to live out our lives not as our fantasies would invite, not as we would like others to think we live, but transparently in the power of the Holy Spirit. When we choose to live transparently as a lifestyle, then the world can see that our risen Lord Jesus Christ is in full control of our lives. In this way his love is able to freely flow out of our lives like a sweet-smelling perfume, offering the hope of salvation to those who are in the process of being saved. We choose not to be like Moses who wore a veil out of fear to hide the fading glory of God. We are also to choose not to be like another group that is wearing veils:
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Never have to show yourself again!
Just released---a Moses model; Comes with shine in a plastic bottle,
It makes you look like you've just seen the Lord!
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(Repeat first verse---then shout:
YOU'RE PROTECTED!)
But their minds were hardened; for until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ. But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart....Now Paul shifts his focus from Moses to the sons of Israel. He points out a couple of truths that are quite evident. First, when the Israelites heard Moses recite the law of God in the wilderness, their hearts were filled with pride. "We can do it," they said (see Exodus 24:3-8). They could not see that the law was fading because it was to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ. They wanted to cling to the law as a means of salvation. There is a certain glory and joy in trying to keep the Ten Commandments. But with them come a blinding pride, a self-righteousness heart, and a hateful contempt for those who fail to keep the law in the midst of their own fading glory, so that they experience personal shame and despair followed by spiritual and emotional weariness and death. When the Israelites said they could obey the law, God said to Moses, "O that [My people] had such a heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always...." (Deuteronomy 5:29). But they disobeyed. They tried to obey by relying on their own strength, and God hardened their minds by the process of dulling their spiritual perception.
The veil becomes the symbol of whatever interferes with and delays the work of the law. Instead of being open, honest and transparent before God and saying, "I can't do it," we put a veil over our face and say, "I can do it." The law has come to condemn us. It is a minister of death to show us the emptiness of trying to keep the law. The veil puts off the death that we need to come to in order to receive the life God is willing to give us in Christ.Little has changed in the Jewish community over the last two thousand years since Paul wrote to the Corinthians. If you had the opportunity to visit the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem today, you could witness the public reality that the self-righteous veil is still being worn over the hearts of the Israelites. They stand there crying out to God, reading the Law, and singing the Psalms, but their hearts remain hardened toward their Messiah Jesus, the only one who can remove the veil of spiritual pride. However, there is nothing more enjoyable than seeing a Jew come to accept Jesus as his or her personal Messiah. They have a boldness and openness that are wonderful to behold. Just think of our wonderful Jewish couple Tuvya and Ellen Zaretsky, who came to the spiritual realization that Jesus was Messiah and wanted to be their personal Lord. With hearts of gratitude they are now spending the rest of their lives in the joy of the Lord offering the good news of Messiah Jesus to the Jewish community.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,There are many Christians in our communities who come out of difficult, perhaps tragic, circumstances who now as followers of Jesus Christ still struggle with confusion and fear about God's love for them. And all of us struggle in the lifetime process of learning to believe the spiritual reality that God did make a new covenant for us to enjoy a loving and spiritually fulfilling life as we cast our lot with him. So we continue to bring some of the habits out of our old life before Christ into our new life with Christ. The veils of pride and hypocrisy come in many forms, all worn out of fear to hide the fading glory of the flesh. All of us have struggled at one time or another in our new life in Christ with wearing a veil of self-control over an anxious spirit; a veil of humility over a prideful heart; a veil of quietness over our frustration and anger; a veil of defensiveness over our failures; or veils of wealth, skills, and family name over our personal inadequacy. Yet as new-covenant Christians filled with the Holy Spirit we need to choose to ask ourselves and the Lord, What veils are we wearing so that our brothers and sisters think we are competent and confident when we are struggling?
my ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness or complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness and my fear being exposed.
That's why I frantically wear a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant, sophisticated facade, to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.
But whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.Now Paul offers hope to all in the Christian community at Corinth who no longer desire to be closed, hidden, and phony; but seek to be open, transparent, and honest. The good news is, "Whenever anyone turns to the Lord the veil is taken away." Paul has already mentioned in verse 14 that if the Jews turned to Jesus as their Messiah they would be set free from the flesh, from pride and self-sufficiency, from their "we can do it" attitude and reminding them that when Moses was in the presence of God there was no need for the veil (see Exodus 34:34a). In the same way, when Paul spoke the words of God to the people, he needed no veil, for he was drawing on the fellowship, person, presence, and power of God to function as a minister of the new covenant while teaching its principles.
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