BeyondSeeLevel

I knew a young lady years ago. We were pretty close. But I knew she had some issues that I really didn’t understand. From what she told me, she dealt with some private stuggles with depression and suicide when she was a teenager. And once she graduated from Highschool, that didn’t change. Soon after, she met what would be her 1st love. About 2 years into the relationship she got pregnant. During this relationship, she started going to church consistently for the 1st time in her life. She obeyed the gospel when she was 7 months pregnant. Then a few weeks later, with her new found walk with the Lord, she got married to try to right her wrongs. She understood that she couldn’t be fornicating anymore since she had given her life to the Lord. That marriage didn’t last and she was a single parent.

And she would be so, for about 4 or 5 years until she met her 2nd love interest. By this time, she had really grown in her walk with the Lord. And as faithful and committed as she was, she found herself fornincating again. She knew better and felt so ashamed. Particularly, because she knew so many people at church respected her. So to right her wrong once again, she married. And soon after, they planned and had a baby. This marriage was short and full of trauma and drama because her new husband was a drug addict. Before she could divorced him, he was killed in a car accident years after they had separated.

But God used the trauma she experienced in this marriage to introduce her to herself. 

Anybody been there…where God had to introduce you to yourself. You thought one thing about yourself, but it took God to show you the truth about you.

She didn’t realize that she had been living her entire life wearing a mask, pretending to be something she wasn’t.

And it literally took an encounter with God before she was ever aware that she had been wearing a mask.. 

She wore a mask of strength when she was really weak.

She wore a mask of confidence when she was really insecure.

She wore a mask of “living her best life” when she was really in a dark place.

Even her marriages were masks to hide her insecurities, struggles and sin.

And she had to learn the hard way that when you try to cover up brokenness, dysfunction and sin, you make things harder for yourself. 

That young lady was me. And sometimes, even today, she’s me. 

And ever since I’ve taken those masks off, the enemy is always trying to put them back on. If not those, he’s trying to give me some new ones.  

To some degree, we’ve all put on masks to hide parts of who we are. We may not be aware of it, but we have. We may not be willing to admit it, but we have. We may even think that we’re above the temptation of hiding behind masks.

Sometimes people wear masks to intentionally deceive others. 

But other times, it’s to protect themselves. It becomes a defense mechanism.

This is why we need God to help us figure us out. Because some of us don’t even know that we have on masks.

Search me O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. Psalm 139:23

When we deny, try to hide or try to cover up the issues of our hearts, we develop a false sense of security within ourselves. We think we’re alright, when we’re not alright. We think we’re fooling other people, but we’re really fooling ourselves. And truth be told, most of the time, people can see right through those masks. 

• People know when you pretend to be holy, when you’re not. They don’t have to see what you do behind closed doors. All they have to do is talk to you long enough. Your mouth will tell on you.

Matthew 15:18 The things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart. 

• They know you are not over it like you say you are, because it bleeds out in how you talk about that other person. Your conversations are full of bitterness, unforgiveness, jealousy and criticism.
• They know that your self-esteem isn’t as high as you claim it to be. I don’t care how fly your hair, nails, makeup and clothes are. They see the people you keep yoking yourself up to and how you seem to be drawn to dysfunction and drama all the time. You say your esteem is high, but you’re living low.

And as a child of God, if you can’t be honest with yourself, you can’t be honest with God.

And so we put in all this effort to hide sin, shame, sickness or whatever else, thinking we’re protecting ourselves; protecting our reputations; protecting our egos; protecting our name — when in actuality, the mask we wear makes our condition worse. 

We add more sin on top of sin. We add more shame on top of shame. We add more sickness on top of sickness. We add more regret on top of regret. And guilt on top of guilt.

We live life carrying all of this weight in our hearts and in our minds — struggling to breathe because we’re constantly in performance mode – not living authentically. This is exhausting! 

And this might explain why so many have such bad attitudes. Tired of faking it, but don’t want to admit it.

And instead of removing the mask, we just attempt to adjust and manipulate the mask to feel better about ourselves and where we are in life. And we focus on the flaws of other people so we don’t have to give attention to our own flaws. This is exactly where the enemy wants us. He wants us to wear the mask. And he wants us to get really comfortable in the mask because he knows that it’s like a veil that stands between us and the liberty we have in Christ Jesus. 

Free from sin, shame, regret. And free from being consumed with what others think about you. 

• The masks will keep us from admitting the degree of our ugliness. Masks will have you in denial about how messed up you are. When I was living in sin in those dysfunctional relationships and marriages, I could have consumed my time focused on all the wrong they were doing. Doing that, I would have never found the “me” in my own mess. 
• The masks will keep us from working on bettering ourselves for the Lord. We get caught up in other people patting us on the backs and esteeming us, that we forget that God is not pleased or impressed with you or your lifestyle. When I was caught up, I think I was more concerned about church folk finding out, than I was about the fact that God already knew.
• Then the masks will keep us from true repentance. Why would you repent when you’ve deceived yourself into believing that you’re in a good place? I sure nuff had to have an encounter with God to see this for myself. I was crying out to God about all the stuff husband #1 was doing against me and God stopped me where I was and said “Yeah…Yeah….yeah….but what about your stuff?” All the while, God was using the dysfunctions I was having in my marriage to show me the dysfunctions He was having with me. Tressa you’re not loyal, faithful or consistent. Now you know how I feel.”

There’s no way in the world I would have been able to remove my mask without God intervening. 

The world won’t even tell you that you have a mask on. The world glamorizes the masks that keep us blind from the truth of who we are. And it calls it everything except what it is.

• The world says that becoming a better version of yourself is the goal. And those standards for becoming a better version of yourself have nothing to do with pleasing God. It’s all about you being happy and living your “best life”. But it’s 100% impossible to live your best life outside of the will of God. This is deception on top of deception. And a lot of us are deceived that living our best life is what God wants most for us. God wants to give you a blessed life, full of His will, way and Word.
• The world is pushing that we all stand for our own truth. This is why there are so many different identities you can wear. It’s no longer about who God says you are or should become. All you have to do is be unapologetically who you are. And if the world is pushing this agenda, you can guarantee that you’ll be outside of God’s will. But the world leaves out the spiritual consequences. It paints a picture of being liberated and free to be yourself. But it eliminates the need to face the problems we have within yourselves and with others. There are always consequences that come with abandoning the design in which God created you to be that the world will keep quiet about. God created you to be holy, for He is holy. 

God instructs us not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Rom 12:2

There’s a big difference in standing in your own truth and standing in the the Truth of God.

John 8:23 Know the truth and the truth will set you free. 

Notice that it didn’t say knowing your own truth will set you free.

This is what the world is telling us. This is why when God saves us, He saves us from sin, shame and our very own selves. Because we can be our own worst enemies.  

The masks we wear are covers. But they don’t have the ability to change our condition or our position. Only God can do that. 

Have you ever spilled something on your sofa or chair and it left a stain? And you knew you were having company and you decided to put a nice throw over the stain. And you get all of these compliments about how nice everything looks.

But it wasn’t what they thought. You just covered up what was wrong. You didn’t clean it up.

If you remember, Adam and Eve made coverings for themselves because they realized they were naked. And they tried to hide it. But God saw right through that. As a matter of fact, that covering didn’t conceal their condition. It actually exposed their true condition.

It’s the same for us. Our masks, our coverings make us feel secure and better about ourselves. And as long as we keep fooling ourselves, we’ll never get to the place God is calling us to be. 

We’ll be like those silly, weak women mentioned in 2 Tim 3:6-7

…weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 

And veres 5 lets us know that we can have a form of godliness, but deny its power.

So we put on a mask of strength when we’re weak. We put on a mask of deliverance when we’re still in bondage.

We continue to live lives that habitually deny the truth and we grow more and more impressive with people. But we grow weaker and weaker in the spirit and less pleasing to God.

So how do we take off these masks?

• How do we experience the freedom we have in Christ Jesus without the shame and regret?
• How do we get to a place where we are so free in Christ that even our struggles become a place God can be glorified?

The answer is found in walking in the identity God has assigned you as His Child. 

Walking in your Christ identity liberates you from being a slave to the masks:

• being a slave to the shame of the sins of your pasts
• being a slave to other people’s acceptance and approval
• and definitely being slaves to hypocrisy.

Instead of us consuming our lives chasing to hear “well done” from other people, we’ll consume our lives chasing to hear “well done” from God. Because, ultimately, this is the only “well done” that matters. We need to understand that man can smother you with “well dones” when God has turned His face away from you in displeasure.

Our ability to remove the mask does not depend on our ability to avoid the ugliness of who we are or our ability to deceive or fool others. Removing the mask depends on our willingness to submit to God — to allow God to expose us to the ugly within ourselves

And then allow God to transform you so that you can live a life that pleases Him.

And only then, will we be able to walk fully in the identity God has assigned us as His children. Our past and even our present-day struggles will transition from holding us hostage in a place of shame and regret, to being testaments of the transforming power of God. 

Proverbs  10:22 The blessing of the LORD is rich, and He adds no sorrow with it.

This reminds me that as I commit myself to striving to be who God has called me to be, that with His blessings in my life, though they may come with struggles, they won’t come with sorrow. I WILL NOT regret giving my life to God in total submission.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: The old has passed away; behold the new has come.

God makes us new.

Can you imagine being loved and accepted and not having to do anything to get it? 

You know we live in a transactional world. You do this and I do that? 

But Jesus’ love for us not like that and it doesn’t change.

Romans 8 teaches us that there’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God. 

Not even if you take your mask off and you come naked before the Lord with all of your hurts, habits and hangups. 

As a matter of fact, He wants us to come this way. 

He wants us to come to him authentically, bare, naked and honest.

With Jesus, you don’t have to pretend to be anything that you’re not. You don’t have to pretend to be healed when you’re still broken just to protect yourself or to make sure people want to be around you. 

You don’t have to pretend to be brave and secure, when you’re really scared and insecure. 

Not only can you be transparent with God, but you can be 100% authentic with God.

No mask and no makeup!

I know, as women, we wear makeup to enhance our beauty, but Jesus is saying to us that what makes us beautiful is seeing Himself in us.

Why don’t I have to pretend?

Because He’s given us a new identity in Him.

If you can remember who you are in Christ Jesus, you won’t feel the need to wear a mask.

If you allow God to transform you, you’ll become a person that God will be pleased with, even if others keep trying to hold your past and mistakes against you.

You know we live in a time when society will try to cancel you when you do something they don’t like. They try to make you irrelevant and encourage society to ignore you. 

But God is letting us know that even when you fall short, you’re still relevant and loved in His eyes. 

You have nothing to hide behind a mask because your past doesn’t matter. Jesus did something for us that we could not do for ourselves. 

Now I started out with a story about myself. And I told it the way I did for a little creative appeal. But I have no issue with telling my story. And because of that, it has taken away some people’s voices that would rather be able to dog me out. Why? Because I was in a low place. And the fact that I was down, made them feel better about themselves. 

And God literally had to have an encounter with me for me to even realize just how low I was. I struggled because I was looking to the world to discover my value and worth. I didn’t have the ideal body or figure. I didn’t have the money. I didn’t have the education. I didn’t have the relationship status. 

But with all of that, I have no shame of where I’ve been because I know where I’m going. 

I know how church folk whisper about divorced women, women that have been married multiple times and women that get pregnant outside of marriage. 

I’ve been all of that! 

But I know what God says about who I am in Him. And that’s where I strive to live my life daily. In Him! The enemy fights me hard to pull me away from my Christ identity. 

But who I became in Jesus, was a game changer for me. I’m not the same person I used to be.

I know there is someone that could testify of the broken little girl I used to be back then. 

Sometimes, I think about the “Tressa” back then and it brings me to tears. I look at her and wish I could have given her some of my strength. She was so broken. And she attached herself to individuals that took advantage of her brokenness and weakness. 

But then I start to smile, because God reminds me that that “Tressa” was necessary to get to this Tressa.  

I started out by telling you who I was then, but now I want to tell you who I am now. 

Now let me introduce myself to you mask-free, in Christ Jesus.

I am forgiven by God.

You can hold my past against me if you want to. But God doesn’t. That’s who I am.

I am loved.

You can cancel me and shut me out because of my mistakes. But God says nothing I have done or ever could do, can separate me from His love. That’s who I am.

I am chosen.

You might not want me. But God wanted me so much that He gave His only Son to die for me so that I could live. That’s who I am.

I am justified. 

You might not think I’m good enough to hang with or be around. I’m not popular enough or good enough for you. But Jesus made it possible for me to stand in the presence of God. I walk with Jesus daily. That’s who I am.

I am redeemed.

You might not think enough of me to want a relationship with me. But God made sure He made it possible for me to come back to Him. I’m that prodigal daughter he threw a party for when she came to her senses. That’s who I am. 

I am reconciled.

Your perception or rejection of me is your business — not mine. God accepts me completely. That’s who I am. 

I am sanctified.

You separated yourself from me because you didn’t want to be guilty by association. But God separated me from the world so that I can be associated with Him. That’s who I am.

I am holy.

I know you prefer to only see me as my mistakes. But the Holy Spirit of God lives in me. And everyday as I submit to His Spirit, I look more and more like my Heavenly Father. I’m holy. That’s who I am.

My journey might not look like your journey. And we may not have worn masks for the same reasons. We don’t have the same story.
But who we are in Christ Jesus is the only identity we’ll ever wear that matters.

Not your position at work

Not being the wifey.

Not being the mom.

Not being the boss.

Not being the CEO.

But who God says you are in Him.

And when I finally embraced the truth about who I am in Christ, I also embraced the assignment and purpose He has for my life.

I made a mess.

That mess caused me misery.

I took that misery to the Master.

The Master had mercy on me.

Then He gave me a ministry.

I don’t know who God has used me to speak to through this blog. But my prayer is that you start walking in your identity in Christ Jesus and be freed from the masks. Be who God has called you to be. There’s no shame in that.

*Tressa Jo