Have you ever worn a mask in an attempt to hide what you are going through? On a day when I had a broken heart, a friend asked if I was alright. I answered, “I’m fine.” I never considered that God might have sent my friend to help me at my point of need. I held my mask firmly in place. Perhaps I missed the very healing God wished to impart that day. Maybe you have also missed yours. The Lord doesn’t want us to expose our pain to just anyone. But the Holy Spirit will reveal when He has sent someone we can trust. He longs for us to know when we have the freedom to open our hearts.
The Holy Spirit might also be leading you to open your heart to someone who has been deeply hurt. Perhaps, you don’t want to share your own pain because opening up makes you vulnerable. Whether you have pain that consumes you or pain that is reconciled, God helps and heals you when you are willing. If you don’t let your mask down, you don’t experience freedom. You may have denied your own healing and healing for someone else.
We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:13–18 NIV)
God wants to heal our hearts, but He can’t if we hide behind self-imposed walls of protection. That “old covenant veil” says I’m not good enough to be used or helped. But Christ sets you free from the old person you were to understand the new person you are. When the Holy Spirit leads you to share with someone and you open your heart to them, you experience the freedom of the healing presence of God. There is nothing that separates you from Him. You have no mask before Him.
I don’t want to be hardened and defined by the past or my pain. I also don’t want to wear a mask out of fear I will be hurt if I open up. I want to be real and know that the Lord who encourages me to share my pain will also heal that which I have entrusted to Him. Where the Holy Spirit is, I have the freedom to be vulnerable and the faith to open my heart. In my honesty, He can bring healing to those He leads to me—and He can also bring healing to me.
Do you live an old covenant relationship with God that never allows the Holy Spirit the freedom to show you who are in Christ? With your mask down, you reflect His worth. You reflect His glory. When you share your heart, you experience the very heart of His love. Are you ready to live in the freedom of His new covenant grace?
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