I think it is almost comical how blind we become to ourselves.
Tragic, yes.
Painful, yes.
But also absurd.
We walk around thinking we know who we are, when most of what we show the world is a construction. A front. A polished little costume we wear to survive, to be accepted, to keep up appearances, to avoid questions, to keep people from seeing that inside we are writhing with pain, fear, loneliness, rage, shame, or spiritual hunger.
We say, “I’m fine,” while something in us is bleeding.
We say, “God is good,” while our faith is hanging by threads.
We smile in pictures, sit in pews, shake hands, post slogans, join communities, repeat the approved phrases, and pretend we are whole.
But Christ sees through all of it.
That is the terrifying mercy of Him.
He sees past the face, past the body, past the clothes, past the politics, past the denomination, past the performance, past the title, past the holy language, past the fake self we created because the real self felt too dangerous to reveal.
And maybe that is why so many of us avoid Him while claiming Him.
Because Christ does not worship the false self.
Society starts training us early.
We are taught what bodies are acceptable.
Perfect face.
Perfect hair.
Perfect teeth.
Perfect skin.
Perfect breasts.
Perfect penis.
Perfect weight.
Perfect youth.
Perfect job.
Perfect house.
Perfect partner.
Perfect children.
Perfect attitude.
Perfect success.
We are told how to look, how to act, how to feel, how to desire, how to speak, how to dress, who to love, what to become, what to hide, and what to hate in ourselves.
And most people never stop to ask who taught them all this.
They just obey.
They call it normal.
They call it maturity.
They call it success.
They call it fitting in.
But a cage is still a cage, even when everyone agrees to decorate it.
Then religion gets added to the mess.
And people say they were “raised in the faith.”
Sometimes that is true.
But often, if we are honest, they were not raised in faith.
They were raised in a denomination.
There is a difference.
Faith is living trust in God.
Faith is the trembling soul reaching toward Christ.
Faith is the Holy Spirit whispering in the secret places.
Faith is the difficult work of love, repentance, mercy, transformation, and truth.
A denomination is a structure.
A tradition.
A family inheritance.
A system.
Sometimes it is beautiful. Sometimes it protects holy things. Sometimes it carries wisdom, liturgy, sacraments, prayer, and generations of faithful witness.
But denomination is not automatically faith.
Too often we simply follow our parents, grandparents, region, class, culture, or family history into a church as if we are some kind of spiritual dynasty. Methodist because the family was Methodist. Catholic because the family was Catholic. Baptist because the family was Baptist. Anglican because the family was Anglican.
And no one stops to ask:
Do I know Christ?
Do I follow Him?
Do I hear the Spirit?
Do I love mercy?
Do I seek truth?
Do I recognize the image of God in people who make me uncomfortable?
Do I worship God, or do I worship the version of religion that makes me feel safe?
Christ did not have a denomination.
He did not walk around defending a brand.
He did not care about appearing respectable to the people obsessed with respectability.
He did not flatter power.
He did not perform holiness for applause.
He did what He was sent to do.
He saw people.
Really saw them.
Not only their sin.
Not only their sickness.
Not only their poverty.
Not only their reputation.
Not only their body.
Not only their social place.
He saw the person beneath the label.
The woman at the well.
The tax collector.
The leper.
The blind man.
The bleeding woman.
The thief on the cross.
The hungry crowd.
The grieving mother.
The dead child.
The outsider.
The unwanted.
The ones religion had already decided were too messy to touch.
Christ saw them.
And that is what we seem to have forgotten.
No one wants to do the deep dive into the self.
No one wants to ask what makes them tick.
No one wants to sit still long enough to hear the Holy Spirit speaking beneath the noise.
Instead, we let society pigeonhole us.
We let family systems decide who we are supposed to be.
We let parents control the path.
This career.
This school.
This college.
This fraternity.
This sorority.
This church.
This political party.
This social circle.
This kind of marriage.
This kind of money.
This kind of success.
This kind of life.
And we call it guidance when sometimes it is just fear wearing a nice outfit.
It is sickness, some of this.
The way we crush people before they have time to discover themselves.
The way we tell children who to be before they can even hear their own soul.
The way we shame the strange, the sensitive, the queer, the disabled, the poor, the fat, the awkward, the mystical, the different, the wounded, and the ones who cannot fit into the machine.
I have said this for most of my life:
People should be allowed to discover themselves in their own time.
Let people choose their path.
Let people listen for God.
Let people become.
Not everyone blooms on your schedule.
Not everyone is called to your version of success.
Not everyone’s holiness looks like your comfort zone.
And yet people love to say, “All people are equal.”
“Love everyone.”
“We are for the people.”
“We are inclusive.”
“We are welcoming.”
“We are building a better world.”
And sometimes I have to say:
Bullshit.
Because when the cameras are on, everyone knows how to perform compassion.
Everyone knows how to hold the sign.
Everyone knows how to say the slogan.
Everyone knows how to stand in the picture.
Everyone knows how to look like they care.
But when the rubber meets the road, the story changes.
Help comes with caveats.
Friendship comes with caveats.
Love comes with caveats.
Sex comes with caveats.
Belonging comes with caveats.
Identity comes with caveats.
The fat person is still judged.
The poor person is still judged.
The non-university graduate is still judged.
The gay person is still judged.
The Black person is still judged.
The Latino person is still judged.
The Mexican person is still judged.
The disabled person is still judged.
The addict is still judged.
The mentally ill person is still judged.
The person who cannot perform success is still judged.
So no, we are not nearly as equal as we pretend.
Not in society.
Not in communities.
Not even in churches.
We say beautiful things and then organize our lives around prejudice.
We are God’s creation, and still we behave like hateful, spiteful people.
We care more about money, material wealth, attractiveness, influence, bodies, status, comfort, and being seen as right than we care about the actual beauty of God in creation.
We miss the beauty in difference.
We miss the beauty in disability.
We miss the beauty in bodies that do not fit the standard.
We miss the beauty in those who suffer.
We miss the beauty in faith because we keep confusing it with religious belonging.
Denomination is not faith.
Let me say it again:
Denomination is not faith.
Some denominations teach beautifully.
Some preserve holy wisdom.
Some nourish souls.
Some protect sacraments, prayer, Scripture, and reverence.
But some teach wrongly.
Some teach fear.
Some teach control.
Some preach love and practice exclusion.
Some say, “Follow Christ,” while protecting power.
Some leave million-dollar megachurches and board private planes while the poor are told to be patient.
Some preach sacrifice to the struggling while building empires for themselves.
Some clergy care more about their wallets than their flocks.
Some priests have abused children.
Some have stolen money.
Some have denied the Eucharist to people because they were gay, divorced, wounded, poor, complicated, or did not fit the institution’s idea of worthiness.
Some religious take vows and break them in secret while demanding holiness from everyone else.
Some wandering preachers still peddle snake oil with a Bible in one hand and a sales pitch in the other.
What happened?
At what point did we fall so far from grace that we stopped giving a damn?
I do not think Christ would be calm about this.
I think Christ would overturn more tables.
I think He would scold the rhetoric.
I think He would rage at the way His Scriptures have been twisted.
I think He would grieve the way His mission has been hijacked for money, power, politics, control, and self-glory.
Because the Gospel was never supposed to be a weapon for the ego.
It was supposed to be good news for the poor.
Freedom for the captive.
Sight for the blind.
Mercy for the sinner.
Bread for the hungry.
Healing for the wounded.
Welcome for the outsider.
Life for the dead.
But people have taken the love, light, and beauty of God and locked it behind human systems.
Men deciding who gets grace.
Institutions deciding who gets mercy.
Churches deciding who gets the sacrament.
Communities deciding who gets dignity.
Families deciding who a child is allowed to become.
And the worst part is that many people doing this claim Christ while living against Him.
They talk about God guiding them.
They talk about Jesus protecting them.
They talk about blessings, favor, prosperity, obedience, righteousness, and truth.
Then they turn around and show hatred.
How?
How do you justify a life in Christ while despising the people Christ told you to love?
How do you claim the Holy Spirit while ignoring the little voice inside you that says something is wrong?
How do you scream about sin while hiding the same thing inside yourself?
We see it over and over.
The preacher railing against gay people while hiding his own desire.
The moral crusader condemning addiction while numbing himself in secret.
The person attacking trans people because something in them cannot bear their own complexity.
The one shouting about purity while living a double life.
The one using Scripture against everyone else because they are too afraid to face the mirror.
Why?
If you are in such a state of fear, why keep lying?
If you are struggling, why not tell the truth?
If you are broken, why pretend you are the judge?
If you are hiding, why attack the people who remind you of what you buried?
Is it worth it?
Is it worth losing your real self?
Is it worth hiding from Christ?
Christ already knows you.
Christ already sees you.
Christ created you.
So what are you hiding from Him?
And why do you care more about society’s opinion than God’s truth?
This is where the question becomes personal.
Not just for preachers.
Not just for churches.
Not just for hypocrites.
For all of us.
Who are you really?
In life?
In Christ?
Who are you when no one is clapping?
Who are you when the camera is off?
Who are you when the title is removed?
Who are you when the denomination cannot protect you?
Who are you when the family script falls apart?
Who are you when the mirror tells the truth?
Who are you when the Holy Spirit whispers and you finally stop talking long enough to hear?
Are you a believer?
Are you a follower?
Or are you stuck in a rut someone else pushed you into?
A career you did not choose.
A church you never examined.
A hatred you inherited.
A life built around appearances.
A false self dressed up as obedience.
Until we can answer these questions, we are not as free as we think.
We may be religious.
We may be respectable.
We may be successful.
We may be admired.
We may be photographed in all the right places with all the right people.
But that does not mean we are living in God.
It may only mean we are living in the world’s costume closet.
Christ calls us deeper than that.
He calls us out of the false self.
Out of inherited hatred.
Out of performance.
Out of fear.
Out of image.
Out of spiritual laziness.
Out of denominational pride.
Out of pretending that belonging to the right group is the same thing as becoming holy.
He calls us into truth.
And truth is not always pretty.
Sometimes truth looks like repentance.
Sometimes truth looks like silence.
Sometimes truth looks like admitting, “I do not know who I am because I have been performing for too long.”
Sometimes truth looks like leaving the role your family gave you.
Sometimes truth looks like questioning the church that raised you.
Sometimes truth looks like loving the person you were taught to fear.
Sometimes truth looks like seeing yourself clearly and not running.
That is where real faith can begin.
Not in the fake self.
Not in the polished religious mask.
Not in the perfect body.
Not in the perfect doctrine.
Not in the perfect public image.
Faith begins when the real self stands before the real Christ and stops lying.
Lord, show me who I am.
Lord, strip away the false front.
Lord, free me from the world’s mold.
Lord, free me from inherited hatred.
Lord, free me from religion without love.
Lord, free me from love without truth.
Lord, free me from truth without mercy.
Lord, free me from every false self I built to survive but now mistake for my soul.
Because I do not want to reach the end of my life having performed holiness and never become whole.
I do not want to call myself Christian and live against Christ.
I do not want to worship a denomination and forget God.
I do not want to preach love and practice contempt.
I do not want to hide from the One who already knows me.
So the question remains.
It is sharp.
It is holy.
It is unavoidable.
Who are you really?
And who are you in Christ?