Our Sunday School class recently embarked on a study about removing our masks with God and with one another. Our initial lesson was focused on the difference between pleasing God vs. trusting God. Nothing wrong with wanting to please God except that the concept is faulty in that it is works based. When it comes to our relationship with God, humanity tries to slip down the path of what must I do to please God. Whether it is salvation, trying to keep our salvation, or somehow getting God to love them more, people usually want to do the spiritual thing on their own terms. The irony in all of this is that the very act of trusting God leads us to the point of pleasing God (Heb. 11:6).

 

When it comes to removing our masks one thing that gets in the way is sin. If you are the one who has sinned, guilt will cloud your ability to be genuine with others because you will fear being “found out” for being less than perfect. On the other hand, if you are the one who was sinned against, hurt will be the barrier to openness. In either case, the victim is the one holding onto the guilt or the hurt.

 

A familiar verse to the guilt laden is Hebrews 12:6 in which we are encouraged to lay aside the sin and the weight which easily ensnares us. As we lay aside the sin which brought on the guilt we can move forward with our walk with God. This same verse works for the guilt’s counterpart, the hurt. If we do not lay aside the weight of hurt, the sin that caused it will eat away at our ability to trust God and others.

 

This leads us to another avenue of laying aside this particular weight, forgiveness. One of the reasons we have difficulty with forgiveness, whether it is ourselves or others, is we do not have the proper prospective of what God did for us. Colossians 2:13-14 speaks of God’s forgiveness in terms of “blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us”. During Paul’s day when someone borrowed money there was an ordinance written and signed by both parties that could be used against them if the debtor was to default on the loan. In order for the debt to be forgiven the very ordinances against the debtor had to be destroyed. That is what Christ did for us on the cross of Calvary, blotted out the ordinances of the debt of sin that was against us. To truly forgive ourselves or others is to literally destroy any connection to the transgression from existence. This is a tall order but one that is necessary if we are to move forward in our walk with Christ.