Everyone knows that one person who acts one-way around a group of people and then totally different around another. Maybe that person is you. I used to be that person when I was younger. I grew up in church but I was not a Christian. I learned to speak Christianese at an early age so I knew what to say around the right people so they would never question the true condition of my heart. When I was in elementary school I used to steal Pokémon cards from people I considered my friends. Now if you asked me if they considered me a friend that answer might be different. I didn’t even know what Pokémon was, let alone play the games but in elementary school if you owned some Pokémon cards you were considered cool and that is what my little corrupt heart wanted. It wasn’t about the Pokémon cards because I am sure if the cool thing then was to have pink stickers on my book bag I would steal someone else’s stickers so I could fit in. I let what was going on in the culture around me at school change who I was. Looking back on it, it was probably because I just wanted the attention that I never got at home. Even though stealing only lasted a couple years, what it started was me being someone I wasn’t. If you saw that same little kid on the weekend who was stealing Pokémon cards through the week, you wouldn’t know it was the same person. I had everyone fooled; no one saw who I really was.
From first grade through tenth grade I created a persona for whichever type of person I was around. Even though I didn’t realize it at the time, everyone around me saw the masks I was juggling and through that I didn’t really have any true friendships. The masks I hid behind became a comfort because I began to think that was who I was. What is insane is being at my church didn’t help at all. Everyone that went to my church just seemed like they had it all together. No one was really vulnerable or transparent with what they were dealing with rather instead acted as if they were without sin. As a young man trying to navigate the struggles of life while dealing with a pornography addiction, it was hard to live up to this fake standard that my church family portrayed. Don’t get me wrong, my church is great; they did not do this intentionally but as a young man this is how I viewed things. I thought since I was dealing with this addiction and sinning constantly I would never be a “good Christian” as if that was something that could be obtained. It became easier just to hide that part of me. There are many other reasons I acted differently around certain people but the root of the problem was I didn’t have true identity and through that I just buckled under most sin temptation thrown my way. Most of you reading this can relate to what I am saying in some way or another. This isn’t something that has just started in the past hundred years but it goes back way farther than this, to the beginning of time actually, when the first man was created.
Look at Genesis 2:21. At this point in the story God had already created everything: light, darkness, the sun and moon, stars, water, land, fish and birds, living creatures on the land and in the sea, and Adam. He had created everything except woman…until now. Genesis 2:21 says, “So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. While the man slept, the Lord God took out one of the man’s ribs and closed up the opening. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. “At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’”” During this time Adam and Eve had it great. They were living in the beautiful Garden of Eden where they didn’t have to work for anything. They walked around butt naked and didn’t have a care in the world. God knows when I am out having a long day, I can’t wait to get home and take my pants off. I am sure everyone can agree with that. Adam and Eve never had to worry about that because they didn’t have to wear pants! The best part about it all was they had perfect communion with God. The bible says God came down and met with them in the “cool of the day.” What more could anyone ask for? Apparently Adam and Eve didn’t think this was enough because after a little persuasion from a serpent, both decided to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Bible says in chapter 3 verse 7, “At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves.“ So immediately when Adam and Eve committed the first sin of the entire world they saw themselves differently. Sin has the tendency to make us see ourselves differently than how God sees us. The fig leaves were a false self. It wasn’t who they were designed to be. They created this mask because they were ashamed of themselves.
Many of us create a false self just like Adam and Eve did in this moment. One reason we sometimes create these fake personas is because of a wound we received. We’ve been hurt by someone or multiple people and we find it easier to hide behind a mask we have created. Like I mentioned, I got a wound when I was a kid because I never received any attention when I was a child. But these masks we wear are NOT healthy. As we walk away from the false self, we will feel vulnerable and exposed. But the only way to ever heal and grow is to come to God. The deep intimate union with Jesus and with his father is the source of all our healing and all our strength. Losing the false self is painful. Though it is a mask, it is one we’ve worn for years and losing it can feel like losing a close friend…but it is time to drop the fig leaf. We no longer have to live like Adam did as he attempted to hide his true self from the world. Jesus Christ came to this world and died to fix the mistake Adam made so quit repeating history by doing the same thing.
Like I mentioned at the start of this blog, I stole Pokémon cards in elementary school even though I had no idea what they were. I was letting the culture around me, even though I was only six years old, change who I was. We still do that today, even as grown men and women. We let the culture and people around us impact how we think, act, and treat others. If you don’t believe me just watch the news. If the news were to report tomorrow that some extreme Islamic terrorist group bombed a shopping mall, most people in America would immediately be more suspicious of every Muslim person they encounter for the next month. It is just how are culture is. Our culture affects everyone, even the church…especially the church. I grew up in an old fashion church in the bible belt of America. The women wore beehive hairstyles with long dresses and the men wore suits and ties. They all sung old hymns and read out of the KJV bible. It is nothing against them it was just the culture at the time. Now you go into some churches in the south and you’ll see some guy upfront with skinny jeans, a tattoo somewhere visible of a scripture that he tells people is in Greek and slick back hair because that is what our culture finds appealing at the moment. The point I am making is we all let the people and the environment around us dictate who we are at the moment. BUT we must shed our cultures and pick up the culture of the bible. Whether you were raised up in an American, Canadian, or Asian culture, it has an affect on how you view the world. We must not keep them but instead see how the bible says to act, think and treat people. The bible says we are not citizens of this world so lets act like it. We need to find our strength and identity in Jesus and not from the friendships and relationships we have now. Many of us have actually been afraid to let our strength show up because the world doesn’t have a place for it. Fine. The world is screwed up. Let people feel the weight of who you are and let them deal with it.
“…But you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of world…” –John 15:19
