We all wear masks. We hide some things on purpose. I mean, we hide things for a good reason, because we aren’t totally real with everybody. We can only reveal everything to someone with whom we have covenant. The deeper the covenant, the more real we can be.
Our deepest covenant is with God, so we can be the most real with God. Our marriage covenant gets us as close to our God covenant as any human relationship. Our covenant between parent and children is lifelong but changes as soon as the children’s marriage covenant kicks in. Our covenants in the kingdom are as deep as our kingdom relationships, are defined by the way those relationships function in the kingdom.
So, we can be as real as the depth of our covenant relationships.
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rhaps that’s why we have such shallow relationships! Perhaps that explain our lack of commitment and commitment issues in general. Perhaps that explains why we feel used and abused, because we are users and abusers of relationships as well?
Oh my! Did I just say that?
How real do I need to be? First, I need to be real with God. I need to have relationship moments and experiences with God that are brutally intimate, moments in which I let my passion hang out without shame or religious posturing. I need to trust God so much that I can be completely real with God. I need to have sessions of private worship and devotion that would be embarrassing if they occured in public. I need to have corporate worship experiences that would embarrassing in they occurred outside the ecclesia because they would be cheapened by misunderstanding and mockery.
Do you ever have worship moments alone and with the ecclesia that are for real, so real that your passions hang out? If you never have a time in which your expressions of worship for God equal your passion releases of emotion, focus, and surrender of will for your favorite things, you are not being real enough with God. I am saying that you should have moments of shouting, cheering, physical response like lifting your hands, dancing, singing loudly, sweating, weeping, and laughing, at times or all at the same time, something consistent with your disposition and devotion. I am saying that being free to shout at your favorite sports team, your kid’s soccer game, or about your rights at work, home, or in society but not being real enough private and publically in worship with ecclesia, means your aren’t being real enough.
The Presence of the Lord is available to you privately because your body is the temple of Holy Spirit who lives within you. The Presence of the Lord is available to the ecclesia in corporate assembly because we are the temple of Holy Spirit on earth. In the Presence of the Lord, the reality of Him being there with us, we worship Him. In that moment, we should be so real that no mask remains in place, no shame limits our deepest expressions of passion, and no barrier exists between the response of Heaven to His Glory and the response of the ecclesia on earth to His Glory!
Do allow yourself another minute’s duplicity…if you are more free to express our passion about your puddle, catching a big bass, finishing a quilt, being elected president of your class, a touchdown, homerun, goal, or crossing the line first, your son’s report card, or buying a new car than you are for the Presence of the His Glory, you aren’t being real enough with God.
Now, I know some people who honestly do not whoop or weep, so they are being real when they don’t dance and shout. I get it that someone people do not have the disposition to emote. However, they are being real. If you can relate to winning a big contract or receiving a raise with more emotion than you give God in worship, you are not being real enough with God.
Please understand that I am not saying that being real means being true to how you feel at any given moment. I am saying that being real with God means bringing everything you are to the reality of His Presence, not bringing the reality of His Presence to how you happen to feel. That would mean that what is physical and natural governs your response when what is spiritual is more real than what is physical and natural. Make your body and soul align under the priority of your spirit.
When God’s Presence arrives where you are in worship, public or private, God is being real with you! He nevers arrives in a mask, limited by hurt, wounds, or distrust. He doesn’t hold back His passion for you. He isn’t more excited about a volcano erupting or the angels being beautiful than He is about you worshipping Him. He is as real as it gets with you, so get as real as it gets with Him!
How real do I need to be? I need to have a marriage relationship that can stand full exposure, no secrets, and
