Stop Hiding, Just Seek
“Man is not what he thinks he is; he is what he hides.”
Christian camouflage? What is that? What do you mean? What does it do for us?
What is camouflage? The definition that I found was, “Concealment by some means that alters or obscures the appearance.”
I have hunted for many years and have seen camouflage change from olive drab jungle pattern to almost any pattern that will make you blend into your surroundings — tree bark, snow, desert, mossy oak, real tree and on and on. And guess what — it works!
At our last men’s breakfast at church, we heard a message by Pastor Mark Reynolds of Bethany Baptist Church about being real, taking off the mask, bringing down the walls that we believe hide us. And I have said on many occasions that we ALL have a broken heart, that our hearts are all bad, and we need a new one.
What does God’s Word say about the condition of our hearts? Let’s look. In Jeremiah 17:9, it reads, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
Did you read that right? Desperately sick. We need new hearts.
Let me give you some hope. In Ezekiel 36:26a, it reads, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you.”
God can give us a new heart. He can do it, but we can’t.
We all have an issue, problem or dilemma, so stop trying to hide it or cover it up. So many believers try to hide it. They slip into their camouflage to blend in with other Christ Followers or, worse yet, the world. But God has called us to help one another with our burdens.
In Galatians 6:2, the Apostle Paul writes, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” The law of Christ means, in the Greek, the law of love.
Stop trying to blend in. Just cry out to God and ask for help; ask a brother or sister in Christ to love you and help with the burden. Stop trying to blend into the world. God has called us to be a peculiar people, as it reads in 1 Peter 2:9. It’s OK to be different or stick out — that is what God intended so you could be identified with Him.
Take off the camouflage that makes you blend into this thing we call the world, and be noticed for what God intended you to be.
Remember, this isn’t our home anyway, as we are reminded in Hebrews 13:14: “For this world is not our home; we are looking forward to our city in Heaven, which is yet to come.” So dare to be different. Be bold.
I end with this quote by Herbert Spencer, “Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.”
Running the race with you, Pastor Dave