Not just a pretty face. Once upon a time there was a baby. He wasn't bonny or bouncy. He was ugly. As he grew up, he grew more ugly. At first his parents tried to ignore it, but it became ever more obvious. People not only noticed, but referred to it. One problem for his parents was that their friends said how much like them he looked! That was enough!  The parents knew they must do something. They made a beautiful mask. It looked like everything they had wished their little darling could have been. No one could see it was not real, unless they looked very closely. The young boy soon learned to put the mask on as he left home, but he was so glad to take it off on his return. His closest friends sometimes saw him with it off, and were astonished at how ugly he had become underneath. In his late teens he began courting. You may be sure that he never once removed that mask at this time. It was with relief that his wedding day arrived. His secret was safe. Not even his brides closest friends had told her. What a horrifying awakening was coming to her. One day he came home as usual, but was barely inside the door before he ripped off the mask and said how good it was to be able to just "be himself at last". If we think the "poor young bride" fainted with shock or ran out of the house in fear we are mistaken. As soon as he threw his mask to one side, she slowly and deliberately began to peel from her own face a similar flexible covering. Horror story?  Yes!  This is the truth about human nature. We are born with a bias to sin, a twisted and warped nature. Our inner being is not beautiful, but ugly. As we grow, sin grows with us. It becomes more corrupt. It spoils us, and we are willing to continue with it. How cleverly we mask the problem so that others will think we aren't as bad as we really are. We may try to mask it by outward religion, going to church or engaging in some other religious activity. Perhaps we try to fool God, thinking that He will see the mask and look no further. But God has made it clear, "Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart." He sees us when the mask is off, and we are our true selves, and He sees us when  our mask is on. He hears the words that speak the true ugliness of our nature. We may try to mask our sins by giving them more acceptable names. After that night out, who wants to be known as a drunkard?  Drunkenness is renamed a "good time". Who would be happy at being bluntly called "foul mouthed"?  Instead we say we are "expressing ourselves plainly". Pride, anger and envy are collected together as we say that we are simply "asserting ourselves". Lies are called fibs and exaggerations. Whatever happened to Sodomy?  It needed a mask, so that old and lovely word "gay" was used to cover it up. Whatever new name we give to our sins is simply a mask for the ugliness of their true character. Sadly, the home is where human nature in its sinful ugliness is so clearly seen. Those we say we love best are the very ones we often hurt most. The only remedy for the guilt and corruption - the ugly nature of sin in us - is found in the Lord Jesus Christ, who never needed to wear a false face of pretended goodness. In the Bible, He is called "altogether lovely". His friends could say, "He did no sin." His enemies had to admit that they could find no fault in him. Even as He died, one of the soldiers executing him stated that Jesus was a truly righteous man. God had already examined His heart, his character, his home life: even His secret motives. The result was the statement, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." His moral and spiritual beauty was no mask of pretence. It was real. But, what did sin do to this upright, holy and blameless man, Jesus Christ?  It brutalised and attacked Him. It killed Him. Lies were used to get Him executed. Sin in its ugliness beat Him with a stick, mocked Him, put a sack over His head and punched His face. Sin and sinners were trying to make Him as ugly as they were. They pulled out His beard by the handful. They lashed His back until it was like a ploughed field. They placed a crown of thorns on His head, and allowed the blood to run down to be mixed with the spit that already stained His face from their abuse. When He came out to carry the cross, to die for sinners, it was said of Him that His face was so marred, more than any other man's. Christ's physical features were made ugly by sin, but not by His own sin, by the same sins that you and I commit daily. On that cross, God then dealt with sin, not by cursing and condemning the sinner, but by punishing His own Son in the sinner's place.  He accepted the moral and spiritual beauty of Christ - His righteousness - in place of ours.  "While we were still sinners," the New Testament says, "Christ died for us." He was making a way for sin to be forgiven, but He was also making a way for our nature to be changed: for the old ugly sinful nature to die, and for a new nature to be born in us.  He was making a way for old and ugly behaviour to be transformed by a new way of life: a way of loving obedience - God's way for us. No one likes to admit they are ugly.  They may see that they don't have the looks of others, but who would ever say plainly, "I am ugly - very ugly"?  The first step for anyone in coming to know Jesus Christ as their Saviour is this step of frankly admitting that they are spiritually and morally corrupt.  It is not a question of getting a new mask.  The problem in our nature is so deep that we need a new nature. Jesus Christ said, "Whoever comes to me, I will never turn away." The Bible also says that "whoever is in Christ, is a new creation, old things are passed away.  Look," it says, "all things have become new, and those new things are of God." Take off the mask.  Come to Christ in prayer.  He can cleanse away the sin you have committed, and change your heart. An old Easter hymn put it simply, He died, that we might be forgiven, He died, to make us good; That we might go at last to heaven, Saved by His precious blood.

return to 'Worth reading' “What a beautiful baby!” Which one is the real you? Masking evil conduct with religion is nothing more or less than hypocrisy. It may fool others. We may fool ourselves. We will never fool God. “Having a great time! Got blind drunk every might” A prophecy about the Lord Jesus said, “His face was more marred than any man’s.” Sin is so brutal.