Coming to The End of Me

We don't want to be seen as having bad intentions, evil thoughts or filled with any number of flaws.  We want to be seen as good and kind and capable at all times.  What we want is not to be seen as we are and to be viewed as we believe others expect us to be.

What we try to do is keep up a facade, wearing one of several masks in which to meet the particular person or group before us.  What we want is to put on a face like a politician but somehow get around having the reputation of politicians, who are believed to be lying pretty much anytime their mouths are open.  Used car salesmen are thought to be more open and transparent than politicians.

The truth is that we are not totally happy with the way we are and cannot imagine that others would be very happy if they really knew us - the real, unabridged, bald-faced us.  Right?  I am certain I am right but just as certain that it is so wrong.  It is wrong to think that our facade is necessary or that our facade is really effective in the long run.

To begin with, people don't really expect others to be perfect.  They may even welcome the knowledge that you are struggling with some of the very things they have in their own lives.  Just having flaws doesn't make you unworthy of love, it just makes you human lie the ones you love.

Of course, if you have done something to break the trust of another, your self-revealing will be hurtful and they may have great difficulty getting past it and trusting you again.  But you will never be able to fully accept another's love or trust so long as you hide the truth and don't allow the sin to become a thing of the past instead of an ongoing part of your present.

The foundation of our deception is as old as mankind: Self-pride.  We struggle with getting to the end of me and accepting a new beginning in Christ, a new life in which we are not the focus, that how we come off is not what is at stake, that self-presentation is not the picture others need to see in us.

We need to come to the end of me so that we can be buried in Him (Rom 6:4) being covered with the glory of Christ (Gal 3:27) and present to the world around us an authentic self that is being perfected in the Spirit while being challenged by self.  Others need to see our sinful, broken self being made whole and holy by the power of God, not a pretend-to-be prefect, self-reliant poser.

When we stop living to impress others with a fracture-less self and start living to express to others the Savior who heals our brokenness, then we can be free of the tyranny of pride as we humbly come to the end of me and to the life offered by the Messiah.  Jus' Say'n.