“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”
(2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT)
Halloween. It’s the time of the year that stores and homes get paper ghosts and skeletons out of their closets and hang them up as decorations. Children dress up in costumes, put on carefully chosen masks to hide their identities, and cascade through their neighborhoods shouting, “Trick or treat!” Except for the shouting for candy adults do the same thing. Only, we tend to do it year round.
Many people are haunted by their pasts. They’re afraid of the skeletons hidden in the dark closets of their lives. Mistakes, regrets, and grudges trouble them like gray, goading ghosts. And, of course, there are the masks. There is always a stack of socially acceptable faces and fronts to hide behind. Many times a mask is worn so long a person believes it’s who he or she really is, their identity, their self-image.
Skeletons, ghosts, and masks – they work together to enslave and entrap, dishearten and discourage. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Jesus Christ came to set us free! We no longer need be haunted, driven, or desperate. He said, “the truth shall set you free . . . and if the Son sets you free, you are free indeed” (Jn. 8:32, 36).
When we come to Christ we no longer have to be afraid of the skeletons in our closets or the ghosts of our pasts. And, we can also trash the masks! We don’t need them anymore. We belong to Christ now! We have new identities! Our pasts don’t define us any longer. Neither does society. We are new persons. New creations. The past is past! We can now be who we were meant to be. The old life is gone. A new life has begun!
© Paul R Downing, Daybreak Devotions
