I don't know about you but if there's one thing I really detest about COVID-19 it's the need to wear a facemask! Yes, I do appreciate their importance and do my best to obey the rules. But even my favourite one, featuring the mighty Raith Rovers F.C., hurts the back of my ears! I struggle remembering to have one with me, and when it comes to other people... well, all too often I find it quite difficult to recognise even well known friends by their eyebrows!
A DISTORTED IMAGE
On the other hand, I guess it could be that there are those who actually welcome using a facemask. For folks like me, whose face is probably more suited to radio than television, then it may be a welcome benefit. But of course
perhaps there are those of us who would prefer to hide much of our true selves from the world. As a former sales rep I would try to project an image calculated to impress others. I tried to make the most of myself and convince the world that I was a bit more 'acceptable' than I feared I really was.
Of course we might be very successful in our deception. We might fool other people, and perhaps even ourselves, but we can never fool God. He knows us as we REALLY are... warts and all....
I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind...
Jeremiah 17:10
A GENUINE RELATIONSHIP
But though the Lord knows us better than we know ourselves, He loves us, and not for what we are, but in spite of what we are! That's why He sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into this world, to take the punishment we deserve on the Cross of Calvary. And so if, in repentance and faith, we receive into our lives the risen Christ Jesus to be our Saviour and Lord, then the consequences of our rebellion against God are dealt with on our behalf. And we'll have no need to dread the inevitable judgment to come...
Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered
and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
Hebrews 4:13
A LOVING FATHER
Sadly, before I became a Jesus follower, I considered the Christian life to be repressive, restrictive and an altogether miserable experience, where I'd have to kiss goodbye to my brains and relinquish every pleasurable desire of my heart. I thought God to be little more than a stern schoolmaster, never satisfied with my efforts to please Him. But how mistaken is such a view! Listen instead to the words of American pastor and author, AW Tozer...
'How good it would be if we could learn that God is easy to live with. He remembers our frame and knows
that we are dust. He may sometimes chasten us, it is true, but even this he does with a smile, the proud, tender smile of a father who is bursting with pleasure over an imperfect but promising son who is coming
every day to look more like the One whose child, he is.'
So, facemasks or not, let's be ourselves, after all, He loves us... warts and all.
