No more pretense

In our culture, we associate vulnerability with emotions we want to avoid, such as fear, shame and uncertainty.  Yet, we too often loose sight of the fact that vulnerability is also the birthplace of joy, belonging, creativity, authenticity, and love.                              Brenè Brown        

                                                                                               

I woke up from a dream on Sunday morning.  I was walking through a vast building with a large, empty foyer and a very high ceiling.  The room was white, with blue trim and I immediately associated it with Greece.  Why Greece? Because in ancient times Greece represented the seat of learning, the intellect, philosophy and about 2,500 years ago, Greece was one of the most important places in the ancient world. The Greeks were great thinkers, warriors, writers, actors, athletes, artists, architects and politicians.  They were also very well-known for their idolatry and the worship of various false gods.  I believe the Lord used this imagery to press on my heart that no part of our being is exempt.  He was addressing the state of man, body soul and spirit.

I walked to the left, which represents the natural, looked out the window and saw two pools. The number two can represent many things, but during worship that morning, the Lord showed me it represented double mindedness.  I walked to the right, which represent the spiritual, and again I looked out the window and saw two pools.  On the right side of the building I also saw booths with small round pools.  These I knew were for the children to learn to swim.

As we entered into deep worship Holy Spirit illuminated more of the dream and it’s meaning.  It suddenly came to me that many women don’t like swimming because they don’t want to spoil their hair or their makeup.  As the Bride of Christ, many believers are like the women who don’t like to get wet.  There is often a resistance to the flow of Holy Spirit because He is misunderstood or they have doctrinal issues around the manifest presence of God…but more often than not, it’s fear, guilt and shame that keeps the body from jumping in.  The people of God are afraid of being exposed and the Lord is bringing a season of illumination of every form of darkness.  We seem to forget that Jesus paid the price of the cross for a Bride and Holy Spirit’s role is to help prepare the Bride.   

I heard the Lord say that He is going to wash off the makeup…all those things we apply to our face to hide our true selves from Him, from others and from ourselves.  The Word teaches us that our hearts are deceitful and that we cannot grasp what is in our own hearts.  Too large a part of His body is living in denial about the true state of their lives.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?  Jeremiah 17:9 ESV

But the Lord knows all, sees all and we cannot hide any wicked thing from Him.  The apostle Paul warns the church in Ephesus with these words: “What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretence.  Tell your neighbour the truth.  In Christ’s body we’re all connected to each other, after all.  When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.” (Eph. 4:25 MSG)

Have you ever thought about the “Me Too” movement and why it gained so much traction, so quickly?  I believe it’s because one person’s courage becomes license for others to be brave too.

The enemy wants us to walk in shame, more than anything else, because our shame will cause us to do the same as Adam and Eve did…hide from a loving Father who wants nothing more than be in relationship with us. 

Let me talk a little bit about the difference between guilt and shame.  Guilt is a legal issue, decided by a judge and punishment is dished out in accordance to the law.  As a Christian our guilt was dealt with once and for all.  The penalty was paid for by Jesus and our legal status is “not guilty”.  Shame on the other hand is a toxic emotion that will keep us in bondage to addictions, to fear of punishment and to many other emotional and mental issues.  As long as we feel shame, we will never really feel like we belong, that we matter, that we are loved or that we have anything to offer.  Shame will cause us to hide from the Lord, to shun His people and to lie to ourselves and others.  It will cause us to find fault everywhere and with everyone.

Yet, Jesus carried our shame to the cross and there is freedom from it, once and for all. When the Lord says He is going to remove the makeup from our faces, He is not threatening to expose and shame us, or to humble us in front of people.  What He is offering us is a new freedom…the freedom to be authentically who we are, the freedom from the fear of being exposed or “caught out”.  He wants us to be free to enjoy Him and each other.  He wants us to be free to frolic in the water, like children.  He wants us to experience joy in His presence and to be creative in our expression of worship, to be generous with our stories of pain and our stories of victory over that pain.

Let me go back to the dream for a moment.  Why two pools?  Because a decision has to be made…we have to choose.  When I meditated on it during worship, the Lord pressed Joel 3:14 on my heart.

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision (judgment)!
For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision [when judgment is executed].
(AMP)

So, whether we have to make decisions regarding the natural or the spiritual, we have to heed how we choose and how we walk.  As we are living in what is called “unprecedented times”, let us not get distracted from the main thing…that we are called to love the Lord above all else, and to love our neighbor like ourselves.  Therefor, let us submit ourselves under the hand of Almighty God, to the washing of the Word, and the healing touch of Jesus, so that we walk without shame, knowing that our guilt was washed away and that we are indeed a new creation.  Selah.

Let me be clear, the Anointed One has set us free—not partially, but completely and wonderfully free! We must always cherish this truth and stubbornly refuse to go back into the bondage of our past.

 Beloved ones, God has called us to live a life of freedom in the Holy Spirit. But don’t view this wonderful freedom as an opportunity to set up a base of operations in the natural realm. Freedom means that we become so completely free of self-indulgence that we become servants of one another, expressing love in all we do.

Galatians 5:1 and 13 TPT