The face behind the mask
I have often wished I could have been able to partake of the Jesus movement of the late 60's and 70's than into the 80's - mostly during the 70's - not because I am a hippie, but because there was a "come as you are attitude" about Christianity - an attitude that has since been replaced with white-collar Christianity that says if you smell bad, look bad, dress bad, and are bad, than you better not step foot inside of our church walls.
This change of culture within the church has been witness to many good things, yet many unfortunate things as well. What use to be a Church Culture is now seen as a disgrace to humanity. Over the weekend I was heading out of town for a short time spent in the local mountains to enjoy a last day of camping. Along the way was a guy looking for a ride. Thankfully around the parts of the country were I live, giving a guy a ride doesn't mean having to carry a shotgun with you. The guy was probably in his mid to late 20's, smelled like he had been smoking some hash, but was completely aware of who he was, and of life. It are the guys like him that I think afterwords I am glad I gave a ride too. I had the chance to ask him questions for probably 10 minutes. Questions about how long he had been on the road (almost 10 years), what the highlights of it were (personal freedom), what the downfalls of it were (not having money), and if he was enjoying life in general (he was). Unlike many of the other people I pick up and start asking similar questions to, this guy was an open book. He held nothing back. He was living a life of freedom, a life without wearing a mask.
Here is an interesting photograph I came across. Recognized any of these people?
From Left To Right: Han Solo, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Leia, Luke Skywalker and R2D2
Now I am a huge Star Wars fan. But I can honestly say without a doubt that if I passed by anybody but probably Han Solo, I would not even know I had just walked past them.
Why is that? Because I know most of them as somebody else - somebody behind a mask.
Now sure, there is Luke Skywalker who I would probably recognize if I heard his voice, but he looks so much shorter in this picture. Would my preconceived identification of him be squelched because of reality and truth?
And of course there is Leia. The heart throb of the entire Star Wars culture. But she too I think I would walk right past without even a hint of consideration of who she really is.
Colossians 2:8 - "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ"
You see, sometimes we have a tenancy to allow ourselves to be taken captive by a preconceived perception of others - or of what we feel others perceive about us. In the days of the Jesus Movement the focus was on spreading the Love of Christ to those who were not the white collar crowd - though they were just as welcome. Now however, those very people who came to know the Lord during the Jesus Movement have seemly turned into the white collar crowed and have forgotten their very roots. Not the part about the drugs and sex, but the parts about the freedom of finding a faith that does not place worldly constraints upon you, the freedom to be who you are so long as you are seeking out God and faithful serving Him, as it says in 2 Timothy 2:15: "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth."
I challenge you today to ask yourself: What mask are you hiding behind? Are you presenting yourself as one person yet deep inside you know (not feel, but KNOW) you are somebody else? On Sunday morning do you get up and put on "the good cloths" to go to church? Not because you are going to worship at the house of the Lord (which should be your focus) but because your just "going to church" and it is the expected thing to do. Do the people you sit next to in church see you as one person, yet the people who see you outside of church see you as a different person?
What are your masks in life that are keeping you from reaching a fuller potential in life to be as Christ-like as you can be?
Blessings,
John B. Abela
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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Author: abelajohnb
Location: California USA
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Blog Entries: 160 (archive)
Blog Comments: 1
raised in a private christian school until his senior year, mr. abela has been around the christian faith nearly his entire life. at the age of twenty-two mr. abela was called to the ministry as a lay-minister where he served as a youth minister for nearly seven years and then...
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