There is a prop that the Lord has asked me to use this morning, and I don’t want to freak you out without warning so I’ll put it on now.

(Pete puts on a white mask).

What I felt from God was this: There are masks that we wear to hide ourselves from each other, in different areas of our life. There is the religious side of things, we hide ourselves behind a super-spiritual mask—someone says “how are you doing?” and you say “I’m doing fine, alleluia, praise the Lord” and we hide behind something that is not real, it’s a mask. There is another area as well, and that is in our lives with people. We feel vulnerable, we feel hurt, and there is a call from the Lord as we come together to be real with one another.

The first thing is that you can’t hear me properly from behind my mask, and, in terms of communication between us, if you are wearing a mask of religiousness “yes I’m fine alleluia, praise the Lord” you don’t hear what I’m saying, you don’t hear my heart, as it tries to speak to you. Because I’m hidden behind a mask. Sometimes we hide things behind race, behind class, behind education, and we say “I’ve been hurt in these areas, I’m not able to communicate with you properly” so we put on a mask to hide and to keep ourselves safe. As we join together, as we become brothers and sisters in one family there’s a cry from the Lord which says “Let’s be one, let’s be open, let’s be truthful, let’s have a real communication between us”.

If you are struggling or if you have a prophetic word for the church communicate it without the religious mask...We need to hear from each other, we need to hear each other’s hearts. You know, these masks can become a prison that captures us, the very thing that traps us inside so that we cannot be who we are in the Lord...

Every mask is a deception, it’s a masquerade. I looked at some of the dictionary terms for mask and it said it is a “false face”. False is deception and there is a call from the Lord not to deceive one another, not to be false with one another. If we take off the religious mask, sometimes beneath it there is another mask, and the religious mask can leave us with the worldly mask where our selves are hidden behind all the things that we put up as a barrier: “You are not getting close to me, I’m not allowing you to get close to me”. Yet the bible says all things are open before him to whom we must give an account. I want to read you this verse taken from “The Message” from Luke 12. “You cannot keep your true self hidden for ever, before long you will be exposed. You can’t hide behind a religious mask for ever, sooner or later the mask will slip and your true face will be known.”

I want to say this: that if we have that love between us without the masks where we are able to communicate one to another without that falseness and without the false face of deception by this shall all men know that we are his disciples. That love shared between us will be the thing that impacts those outside because we are being true and honest with each other.

Father, I pray for any masks that exist between us. Forgive us where we have put forward a deceptive face. Father, help us to be truthful with each other, help us to “one another” each other properly, help us to love as you have intended us to love. Help us to love one another that we might be strong enough to love those outside. We want to do away with the masks in the name of Jesus, help us to be the individuals that you have created us to be, that we might shine for you with those individual gifts. In the name of Jesus, Amen