Unmasked

Then Nathan said to David, "You are the man!" 2 Samuel 12:7 If you're not familiar with what is happening in this passage of Scripture, God had sent Nathan the prophet to confront David the king over his raping of the wife of Uriah the Hittite, her subsequent pregnancy as a result, and the murder of Uriah when David failed to get him to sleep with his wife and so cover up his sin and fathering of the child. Sent by God Himself, Nathan told David of a poor man greatly wronged by another who was far richer and more powerful than he, David was outraged and when Nathan asked him what should be done to the man who had wronged him, he said that he deserved to die. That's when Nathan declared that David himself was that man. These words pierced his heart. His sin had so hardened him as to make him blind to what he'd done. Nathan's confrontation broke him. Does it break you and me? In his writings, John Eldredge has called himself a "poser" in some areas of his faith walk. Meaning he is posing as something and someone that he's not. Paul Tripp asks the question, "What part of my life in Him is fake?" These are "in your face" questions. Do we dare to ponder them? Where are the areas in our relationship with Him where we're only "posing" as sincere followers of the King? Where are the areas where we're faking it? Where is the hypocrisy in our walk and in our profession of faith? We are so easily offended by those in our lives who, like the Pharisees, pose as righteous followers of God, but whose inner lives are very far from His heart. Thomas a Kempis said that we rarely weigh others on the same scale we use to measure ourselves. We so clearly see the wrong in another while being blind to the wrong within our own heart. Someone said that we are masters at self-deception. Where might we be deceiving ourselves as to what is really in our heart? Where do we need to be unmasked? Last night, in a worship gathering, I saw a crowd of people, myself among them, come forward at the preacher's invitation to receive a fresh outpouring of His grace and Spirit. He was among us powerfully, unmasking, cleansing, healing. Whatever "posers" were among us were posers no more. May it be so in each of us. In all of us. May we truly be the church, the glorious church, washed in the blood of the Lamb. Unmasked....and free. Blessings, Pastor O