Trading Faces
a devotional by Rhonda Rhea
We get a new family photo made every time it’s pictorial directory time at church. I love it when we’re forced into getting that picture made, really I do. But there are some definite challenges. Getting all my kids together at one time? Challenging. Getting all fourteen eyes open at the same time? Also challenging. Sucking in my face until I only have one chin? Challenging to the point of nearly passing out.
The photo ordeal was sort of faith-building this time. Since my college boys had to drive in from school and meet us at the photo shoot, I had to simply TRUST that they were going to wear something that wouldn’t make me feel I needed to explain to friends and family that they are NOT homeless boys.
Then there was the viewing. After snapping the photos, they pulled up the couple shot of me and my hubby. I whispered to Richie, “Hey, who’s the fat chick?” He answered, “Who’s the bald guy?” The photographer said they would be touching up the photos, but I’m wondering what they’ll be able to do with too many chins and not quite enough hair.
I’m willing to rise above throughout the photo challenges because I just love looking at our family pictures down the road. I was looking through other family pictures recently and was reminded how I so love oohing and ahing over the pics of all my teens as babies. I made an interesting observation in the photos of the entire family, though. When my teens were babies, my husband had a mustache. And I didn’t. Not a pretty turn of events, I must say. I wonder if we could make a bad reality show out of it. How about “Where’s Their Hair Now? Or even better, something like “Trading Faces.”
Speaking of faces, have you ever met a two-faced person? Have you ever been one? Behaving one way at church, showing a totally different face at home, on the job or at school?
We need to always put our best face forward, as it were. Hypocrisy is one of the Lord’s pet peeves. We’re told in 1 Peter 2:1 to stop all the silly pretending. “So get rid of all malicious behavior and deceit. Don’t just pretend to be good! Be done with hypocrisy and jealousy and backstabbing.” (NLT)
Jesus said in Mark 7:6, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.’” (NIV) It doesn’t even really matter who has the most hair, the most chins or the furriest upper lip. Whatever my lip condition, I never want it to be out of sync with my heart. Hypocritical behavior is a bust. And when we have secret places of hypocrisy in our lives, they interfere with our worship. After all, there are no secret places that are hidden from him. He sees our hearts. Isaiah 66:3 says, “The acts of the hypocrite’s worship are as abominable to God as if they were offered to idols.” (AMP)
Enough duplicity. We need to get rid of every two-faced tendency. TRUSTING him to work is so much more faith-building than watching to see what shirts the college boys are wearing.
Despite the outfit or the chin-count, I won’t be embarrassed when I meet Christ if I’m trusting him to keep my heart clean and I’m looking to him moment by moment for a hypocrisy-check/sin-check. I so want to be able to look forward to meeting Jesus face to face with great eagerness and expectation.
Face to face. Not face to face to face.
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