A Call To The Remnant

There is a common saying that ” the world is your stage.” This does not mean that we are all actors in the sense of the Greek word meaning hypocrites, but it does mean that we are all aware that we have an audience.This audience may simply be our husband or or wives or our children. It could be our extended family, our workplace or our neighbors. Yet this much is sure, we present an image to the ” world.”

What shapes your image? Is it your fears? Your insecurities? Your pretensions? Is it God that shapes you? When it is God that shapes us then our fears and insecurities and pretensions are dramatically reduced. For most of us this is a process. What does you audience think of you? What do they see when they see you? The Greek word for actor is hypocrite, perhaps you are an actor in that sense? The image that you present to the world is not a true image of who you are.

In my estimation the mature saints have one thing in common, for the most part they are transparent, what you see is what you get. This is not always the way to make friends and influence people but it is the road to authenticity. A rare and beautiful thing, even if it is a diamond in the rough. Are you authentic? Are you transparent? You see, light can travel in and through the transparent ones, yet those who are shaped by fears and insecurities and pretensions create an inner landscape of darkness and shadows. The fear of man leads to spiritual death, the fear of God leads to life and that more abundantly.

Imagine living your whole life fearing man, for that is what the root cause of all pretension is. It is bondage. Now imagine living your life totally free of that bondage. Jesus said when He stood up in the temple that He had come to set the captives free. He had come to heal the broken-hearted and restore that which had been crushed. Brothers and sisters, we can live in freedom from this and every other bondage. The Scriptures tell us that He whom them Son sets free is free indeed.

If you live in fear of what other people think of you, can I ask you to begin to let it fall away. The source of your victory in this will be to know what God thinks of you. Let me tell you. He loves you with an ever-lasting love. You are the apple of His eye. You are His child. His thoughts towards you are more numerous than the sands so the sea. Think about that, God knows you better than you or anyone else knows you and He loves you with a burning passion. If, knowing everything about you, warts and all, He loves you still, then what does it matter if a mere mortal thinks differently?

Rest in the sure knowledge that you are loved and let the chains and the burdens of image that over time are so exhausting, simply fall away. God will help you in this. Your circle of ” friends,” may become smaller, but do you really need friends who who only like you for the image that you have created as opposed to who you really are?