The man behind the mask

The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. When you trade in your reality for a role, you give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask.

Webster’s says;
Mask- “a covering for all or part of the face, worn to conceal one’s identity, anything worn to disguise or conceal; pretense, a likeness of a face not your own. …appearance, blind, camouflage, cloak, cover up, disguise, facade, front, guise, pretense….”

“God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.” ~William Shakespeare
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting”

“Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep. “

Mask 1. The Mask of Pretense.

A. This mask is worn when we try to please those around us, by hiding who we are and assuming a role they have chosen for us.

• “All my life I had been looking for something and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.”
• “We all have a social mask, right? We put it on, we go out, put our best foot forward, our best image. But behind that social mask is a personal truth, what we really, really believe about who we are and what we're capable of.“
• “You must have control of the authorship of your own destiny. The pen that writes your life story must be held in your own hand. “
• “We are so accustomed to disguising ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.”

B. This mask is also worn when we try to assume a role that we are not qualified to fill. The belief that this mask is valuable in most social settings is undeniable.

The leader of an army must mask his own fears and strike a pose of confidence, if ever a battle is to be won and an enemy defeated.

The business leader wears a mask both in times of prosperity and in times of calamity.

Parents must mask their own feelings much of the time in raising their young, for the home to function properly.

If we are to ever rise above what we are and become what we desire to be, we must first assume the role that we desire to fulfill.

The first one is prone to lead to evil, the second to greatness.

Evil is the word live spelled backwards-- Evil is anything and anybody who tries to stamp out the flicker of light that is within each of us, to be uniquely you.

When you pretend to be something, or pretend to feel a certain way just for the applause and approval of others, this is evil.

When you repress the dreams God has given you to fulfill the desires of others, this too is evil.

God created us unique; we come into this world, special, one of a kind. Sadly we quickly begin to pretend to be someone else. This is evil…

“I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me”… this mind set calls us to leave the known and step out into the unknown. It bolsters the weak and makes them strong.

This mask was worn by Moses as he stood before Pharaoh—He had ran from Pharaoh – spent over 40 years running from him-- God called him to go back and face him— God enabled him to stand where he had once fled.

This mask was also worn by David many times during his life. When he faced the lion—the bear—and the giant—“You come to me with sword and shield… But I come to you in the name of the Lord”—

I am sure his knees were shaking, his voice may have cracked and wavered—but he had a role to play, a part in a great drama--- behind the mask he was more than able, to play the part.

David wore the mask when the Shepherd boy became a general and a leader of men—

David wore the mask as the Shepherd boy became a king---untrained in matters of law, judgment, politics, and commerce—behind the enablement of the Lord—behind the mask of the part he was called to play—he was more than able. He became the greatest king in Israel’s history.

Mask 2: Mask of False Pretense

All absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. Most extremes in human conduct are masks that the wearer is displaying…

All absurdity of conduct; the overly consciousness of place and being—

• The anorexic, desiring to be thin to the destruction of there own health
• The body builder, the building of mass to the point of making themselves grotesque.
• The success driven, the accumulating of wealth to the demise of the important relationships in their lives.

The overly angry, and the overly funny-- the bully, the clown, the jock, the drop out, and the over achiever. Clowns, misfits, and bad actors playing parts no one can understand.

Mask 3: Mask of deception

“Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue. “

Evil always covers itself in a mask
As we ascend the social ladder, viciousness wears a thicker mask. It becomes more elusive, polished and camouflaged.

David became one of the greatest actors on the greatest stage of his time. As the years passed, God made the man match the man behind the mask. He “was a man after Gods own heart.”

But David sinned, David failed, David’s faults were more pardonable than the means he uses to conceal them.

David called in Uriah, wearing the mask of concern and generosity. False concern, the offering of false rewards—watching, plotting behind the mask.

The eyes of a murder looked out the mask of a smiling, happy, jovial face, as David signed Uriah’s death warrant, delivered it into his hands, and sent him on his way.

In the days that followed David began to become so comfortable behind the mask that he never took it off. He waited certain days for Bathsheba to morn and then fetched her into his house.

Wearing a mask of benevolence and concern, hiding that her lover was also a murder -- “oh how kind he is-- how understanding he is—he has checked on her every day” —wearing a mask of compassion, concealing a heart that had now wandered far from the heart of God.


Insecurity and insincerity are often the reason Good people begin to hide behind a mask—

It robs all involved of “Justice, mercy and truth”—“The weightier matters of the law”.

Second it hinders the wearer from ever becoming, what they were called to become. It condemns us to continue in destructive behavior—it requires us to live out our lives in constant fear that the mask will be ripped off—It makes enemies of all truth loving people—It leaves us lonely—poorer—afraid.

• Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
• “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive”
• Pride works frequently under a dense mask, and will often assume the garb of humility.
• Virtue has a veil, vice a mask.
• “Pride is the mask of one's own faults.”
• “Vice knows she's ugly, so puts on her mask”
• "Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. "~Homer
• We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin.

It was God who came into the garden calling Adam and Eve. They were hiding behind a mask of leaves and thin excuses. Adam did not go looking for God, God came looking for him.

It was God who came walking into the palace looking for David. David did not go looking for God, God came looking for him.

Nathan the prophet was walking a thin line between life and death as he approached the king with his story. He began to tell the story, bringing David in more and more with each word… David was enraged-- David was angry...

Who could do such a act?

“He who wears a mask cannot see within himself.”

David was convicted.

“You are the Man” behind the mask.

It takes courage to remove the mask...

“The closing years of life are like a masquerade party, when the masks are dropped”

“No one will wear any masks when they approach the final dais.”



Thank you for reading today