Façade: “A showy misrepresentation intended to conceal something unpleasant”
Also: from a French word that means “Face”. The front of a building.
A person’s façade, then, would be what they let you see.
What are facades of deceit?
This is where we live our lives attempting to cover over our sins by never really being honest with God. We deceive ourselves and others by confessing our sins only to a point. Most of the time, we never really go all the way. We refuse to call it what it really is. The devil convinces us to accept our sin as part of life. He tells us God understands. So, we build nice picket fences around our sin. We whitewash our sin! Ezekiel 13:10 (MSG) says; “The fact is that they've lied to my people. They've said, 'No problem; everything's just fine,' when things are not at all fine. When people build a wall, they're right behind them slapping on whitewash.” We even get an acceptable social name for it, like a disease. Psychotherapists or modern social shapers, dealing only with the mental and emotional issues we face, grant us the excuses we need to live in our sin.
One doesn’t have to look far to see what this has done to our culture. The medical and drug communities have exploded with patients and profit greatly from our maladies. The best they can offer the sin-sick person is coping skills and temporary relief. At the heart of it all, the sin continues to have its effect on the person. Covering our sin with psychobabble and expensive drugs only delays the inevitable – breakdown and even death in many cases.
Breakdown comes in many forms. Too often we don’t see the real issue as being sin, even when faced with many forms of breakdown. An example of this would be the illicit drug user. In most cases, the person now addicted to drugs, began using them to cover-up pain, pain being the beginning of a breakdown. We all have a burning desire to feel whole and accepted. Because of life issues, like an unbalanced upbringing, we seek something to ease our pain and ward off the inevitable breakdown.
Make no mistake about it, pain is legitimate. It manifests in various forms from physical sickness to relational breakdowns. Often the pain is mental so we feel as if no one understands or even cares. It is easy to ask someone to pray for you if you have physical pain; on the other hand, if pain is in the unseen realm of emotion it is much more difficult to believe that God cares. If that were true, then the Bible would not be filled with antidotes to every kind of pain. Notice what 1 Peter 5:7 says; “ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Anxiety has to do with the mind and emotions. It was Jesus that said “do not worry. . .”, one again, dealing with the mind. Why not worry? Because He knew what worrying would do to you. It only leads to more stress and less quality of life, the very opposite of His plan for us. The scientific community has confirmed many times and in many ways that a happy, carefree person lives a much healthier life. By the same standards, a person who worries and frets over everything tends only to sickness and disease.
Covering up our sin only worsens the problems we face every day. It breaks us down and makes us weak, when we get weak; the enemy comes in as an angel of light to offer a remedy. The whitewashing begins! The façade of deceit is the prescribed medicine. The enemy does not want us to consult God’s Word for the truth because his lies will be exposed in the light of God’s Truth.
The only word related to freedom in the Bible is Truth. More education was not prescribed for healing. More giving of one’s self and finances to the kingdom of God was not prescribed, contrary to TV preachers. Doing more or less is not the antidote we need to be made free. Listen again as the Holy Word of God speaks: John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." What sets a person free? Truth alone and nothing else. What is truth? Jesus is truth! What the Bible says is the final authority! Truth is the total absence of error. No lies of any kind can be found in Truth. That is why it is the only thing that will set a person free. Let’s look at the salvation experience. Jesus said; “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father but by Me.” I am the way and there is no other way. Therefore, for a person to truly be born again, he has to accept this truth. No other way! Can you see how one form of healing takes place when Truth is applied? Giving your life to Christ is the ultimate healing for your sin-sick soul.
Now back to the issue of sin. Most people have no idea that sin and the effects of it remain alive and well in their lives. The question then becomes, when I confessed my sins at the time of salvation didn’t I get forgiveness of all sins at that point? The answer is YES. The root of sin, which is the reason for our separation from God, is confessed and forgiven. If you indeed confess that you are a sinner in need of a savior, then you are forgiven and on your way to heaven. Then what remains? Most often, people mistakenly think that because I made my confession as a sinner that all the issues of sin have been dealt with. This is not necessarily so. If that were the case, then there would be no need for sanctification. What then is sanctification? This is a long word that simply means God, by way of the Holy Spirit, comes to you as a new believer to deal with the effects of sin on every level. Again, are you saved? Yes! Are you going to heaven? Yes! The real issue then becomes living here on earth. How do I overcome sin’s effect on me while I live the rest of my life here? The residue of sin is everywhere. What I mean is that once you are born again, the process of cleansing the effects of sin begins. Listen to how the Apostle Paul explained this issue to the Roman church. “Because of the weakness of your human nature, I am using the illustration of slavery to help you understand all this. Previously, you let yourselves be slaves to impurity and lawlessness, which led ever deeper into sin. Now (when is Now? Now that you have become born again Christians) you must give yourselves to be slaves to righteous living so that you will become holy.” Romans 6:19 (NLT)
Becoming holy is the process of sanctification. It is like a deep cleaning. The word means; a purifier. I love how the Message Bible puts it. “God hasn't invited us into a disorderly, unkempt life but into something holy and beautiful—as beautiful on the inside as the outside.” 1 Thessalonians 4:7 It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring us to completion. That means He will start working when we give our lives over to Him, and He will continue the process until we reach full maturity. That involves attitudes of the heart, little sins that we sometimes don’t even know about, and sins that we do know about but build walls around. He never stops working on us because of His incredible love for us and His desire to see us completely whole, spirit, soul and body.
As stated earlier, God is not just nitpicking so as to make our lives miserable. No, He is sanctifying us through and through to wash the residue of sin completely from us. Why? Because He wants us totally free. The issue is that we tend to want only to deal with fruit and He wants to deal with root. He searches the innermost parts of our hearts to get at the root. That is where hidden sin lives. That is where real deliverance and healing take place. Allow Him to get past the facades of deception and wash them all away. 1 Thessalonians 4:3 “It is God's will that you should be sanctified: . . .”
Is God micro-managing sin? The answer is both Yes and No.
The first answer is No.
If you think He’s out just to find something to condemn you over, then no! He’s not doing that at all! If He were, He wouldn’t have to look hard because we all have sinned and come short of His glory. See Romans 3:23. The truth is, our Father does not condemn us. John 3:17 in the message Bible says; “God didn't go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.”
The key to this verse is - He came to help. God did not send His one and only Son to earth to find fault; nor did He send Him here to condemn. By the standard of His Holiness; (we find this standard in the Old Testament scriptures) we were found guilty from the day we were born. Jesus, knowing that we were separated from our Father, came to tear down the wall of separation and restore us to our original position as children of God. He came to get back what Adam gave away. As Christ hung on that cross, the cost necessary for our sins - death took hold of Him - but sin’s grip was letting go of us! As Jesus took His last breath the veil in the temple came thundering down from top to bottom. While this reveals that the presence of God was being released to all mankind, it also reveals that sin’s grip was loosed at that very moment. Now, for the first time since Adam, the heart of man could be restored to perfection. For anyone to be bound now is the choice of that person, it is certainly not the will of God nor His plan for their lives.
Is God micro-managing sin? The second answer is Yes!
As we have already established, our heavenly Father is not trying to find fault, He is not looking for little sins to trap us and then condemn us. So what then is He trying to do? Let’s look at Song of Songs 2:15; it says “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.” It’s the little foxes that spoil the vine. The little - hidden, covered over sins that keep us from becoming whole and totally set free. God’s interest then, is not nitpicking; rather, His incredible desire is revealed for His creation to be free. His motive, that many people have the audacity to question, is clearly on display. He loves us so much that He will not just look away from sin, how can He? He allows sin to continue its work in us till we see our need to be set free. Look at what James 1:5 says about sin’s effect on us. “15 Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.” Once again, God’s heart for us is to get to the real root of our problems, sin! Sin, when it’s full grown, bring death. Our Father does not want death for us. How do we know this? John 10:10 clearly tells us the purpose of sending Jesus, His only Son, into this world. “. . . I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.
Quite the opposite of condemning, frustrating, or destroying, as so many have wrongly attribute to God. The first part of John 10:10 reveal the true destroyer/killer. “The thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy.” MSG
Can you see the truth stepping out into the light now? Can you see just how much our Father loves us? His heart is totally for us. His purpose toward mankind is flawless. No blame or fought can be ascribed to Him. James even says; “Don't let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say; God is trying to trip me up." God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one's way.” James 1:13 (MSG)
God, our heavenly Father, is for us. He knew us before we were formed in our mother’s womb. He had a master plan for us before we drew our first breath. Jeremiah 29:11 says; “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Wow! Now when you feel the urge cover over sin in your life, remember, that urge is the first step in the process of bondage. To confess your sin and get it out is God’s way of keeping us on the path of blessings, prosperity, and wholeness. James 5:16 says; “Make this your common practice: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed. The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.”
It’s no wonder that the enemy of our souls has become a master of deceit, building facades through lies that keep us bound. Confess all sin, in it’s entirety, and receive forgiveness and be healed – spirit, soul and body!
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