Face Off

Let us say that you are gearing up for a confrontation of mammoth proportions: How do you prepare for such an event? Does it depend on who you are facing off with, or against? What if you are facing off with yourself, then what?

We are all two faced, dear reader. There is the face we present to the world, the one we present to ourselves in private while we are pretending, and then there is the real you and me, just under that masquerade, the one that hides just beneath the surface of the skin we are in, lurking and wondering, Can anyone see me, and this eeeck realization: I can see myself. 

Many years ago my mother was asked why she doesn't go in the pool nestled in our backyard, she replied, This body is for my eyes only. Clothes offer a cover, a protective layer to prying eyes, but they are a thin type of skin, and so is facade, when I compare the two. It may very well be that a bathing suit reveals far too much, but clothes don't hide everything either. It may very well be, that pretending we are good and kind people that make decisions that are wholesome for self and other, cover enough of our sin to make us pleasing to observing eyes, but alas, our words and deeds reveal far more than we care to acknowledge and admit to. 

Go before God and try to hide your nakedness. Go and stand tall before your maker and suggest that your body, your mind, your heart, your soul, are for your eyes only. I laugh hysterically at the idea while almost simultaneously, I weep without breath at the suggestion. My God, how can we possibly hide from him? How mortifying the thought, to have him see me in the raw, the ugly parts of me revealed without the possibility of covering myself. 

I periodically have dreams of being half-naked in front of many people during a disaster. In the dreams I desperately try to figure out, Where do I place my hands?; Which parts am I most shy about others seeing?; How do I cover myself for goodness sakes? Perhaps you have had similar dreams? Exposure to the elements without protection is terrifying; exposure to others without cover is also terrifying; exposure of our true selves before God, now that, that is unspeakably horrifying. God gave coverings to Adam and Eve to give them a sense of security under scrutiny after their fallen from grace sin, but they knew that he knew, how they had sinned against him, and themselves, via disobedience. 

Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD (Jeremiah 23:24)

So I ask you again, dear reader, about the grandest, most tremble inducing face off of your lifetime: You, and your sin, looking each other in the eye. While sin stares you down, quietly demanding you hold eye contact, try as you might, you will not be able to. You will want to look away, tell it to SHUT UP, and LEAVE ME ALONE, but it will silently remain, and won't go away, until of course, you say, I see you, yes, that was me saying and doing and being all the things that now repulse me and sicken my mind, and heart, and soul. Oh how ashamed I am, sin, at how grotesque you are: Why did I like you and even love you enough to embrace you and hold you close? 

If I am being clever, to relieve the tension a tiny bit, I will suggest you take that fake face off, the one that you pretend is yours when you look in the mirror, the one that has you making excuses for self-indulgence that injures you and many others, the very one that denies God as your Judge. There will come a time when you are truly naked without a chance to cover yourself or hide from eyes that do not need to pry to see you, inside and out. Wouldn't it be better for you, to face off with your sin, by confessing all before the Living God, that sees you no matter how you try to fish tail swish your way out of being pinned down? It really doesn't matter how clever we are, dear reader, we simply cannot escape accountability; we are the choices we have made, and they have etched scratches and scars into our psyche, that God is fully aware of. 

The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good (Proverbs 15:3)

Jesus was tempted and yet, while in human flesh, chose not to sin. This is my great hope, that while I live in this skin, this covering, this shell that houses my soul, I can choose not to sin, even when I am tempted, because he lives in me as my strength, as my guide, and my Holy Ghost Redeemer, from a carnal world given over to fakery, fraud, self, and other deception. I did a face off just this morning, dear reader, and I suggest you do so too, for the humbling of your soul before an Almighty all knowing God. There is only one God, and you, and I, simply cannot hide, from him.

For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes (Jeremiah 16:17)

2 Chronicles 7:14

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sins, and will heal their land.

Seek the face of God. Humble yourself and pray ... turn from your wicked ways, and God will hear your repentant heart, forgive your sins, and heal ... that is the hope we have in Christ as the one that died for the sins of the world. 

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:16-17)

Lastly, a statement and a warning regarding believing in Jesus as Saviour:

He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten son of God (John 3:18)