Everyone likes a costume party. From little kids going trick or treating, to adults going to a fun masquerade fundraising party. People love being someone else or something else for a short time. Let us take a look into this. Welcome to the costume party!
Why the Mask?
For Halloween, people started wearing masks to ward off spirits of death during the pagan holiday (the beginning of winter) called Samhain. This started just over 2000 years ago.
Then there was Carnival, which started in the 13th century in Venice. These parties were the only time when the lower and upper classes mingled together. Aristocrats and peasants, disguised by their masks, played out their fantasies together. They indulged in illicit activities like gambling, clandestine affairs, political assassination, dancing, and partying the night away. We consider these things, things of the flesh.
So, in a nutshell, the mask was worn to erase the differences among the people and participate in the spirit of carnival (carnal activity) without being identified. Masks and costumes were worn to become someone else.
It Is Just a Costume
It is just a costume. This is not the real you. It is either who you perceive yourself to be, or it is who you want others to perceive you to be. But now the costume has become the focus. The costume was never meant to be the focus. The costume creates chaos.
I am going to overuse the word costume throughout the rest of this post. So let’s define it.
Definition Please
Costume (earth suit) – the human body and the human mind. This is what we are given to operate here on earth but it is not the real us.
Okay, so the costume is the flesh. It’s our body but it is also closely entwined with our soul. We are made up of body, soul, and spirit. But it is our spirit man (person) who is the real us.
Note: Our spirit can only be made alive in Christ.
Back to the Costume
Even the way you dress as a part of your everyday life, you do it in a way you want to be perceived. For work, for school, for church, and anything else. Even your everyday clothes you wear are a costume. Costumes for our costume, how ‘covered up’ we become.
I will take it even one step further. The body, our costume, is not even who we are. When we arrive here, when we are born, it is as if someone says to us, “Welcome to the costume party.” And we start from those very early days being programmed to play out who we are based on our costume.
A Costume on a Costume
We take our costumes and do all kinds of things to dress it up. People get caught up in their costumes. Most people believe that the costume is really who they are.
Our bodies (costumes while we are here on earth) will focus on the things of this world. Without spiritual training, our body and soul become the main focus instead of the spirit person, the real person, inside of our costumes.
1 Corinthians 2:14 NIV
The person without the Spirit (focused on the costume or earthsuit) does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.
So to live according to our flesh, we can’t experience what God has for us because it is not the way God operates. Check this next verse out:
Galations 2:20a AMP
I have been crucified with Christ [that is, in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live by faith [by adhering to, relying on, and completely trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.
Experiencing God
This is how we are actually able to experience all the promises of God – what God has for us. Abundant life, peace, and completeness. And also no fear of death – because you can’t kill something that is already dead, but alive in Christ. There is no fear of death.
Revelation 12:11 NIV
They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
Your costume holds the illusion that harm to you is possible. But the real you is already dead. If you are dead, then no harm is possible. If we are alive in Christ, then we are dead to ourselves. So if this is true, then no one can hurt us. We are dead.
This is where we literally begin to experience the things of God. It is when, though we have a costume, we live beyond what we ever thought life was. Being dead to the flesh, but alive in the spirit, in Christ.
I am stopping here and I will let you think and meditate on this. How is it your costume keeps you from truly following Christ? Welcome to the costume party. What will you do to be who you are really meant to be?
“You don’t recognize who (whose) you are in God when you seek your value in what men (others) think of you.”
Carmen Ramsey
Challenge of the Week
Most of us get too caught up in who we are or who we want to be regarding our costumes, our flesh. The challenge is to know who you are in Christ. That you are alive in Christ. You are dead to yourself. Because of this, nothing shall harm you. It cannot. So be it!
Note: See more here…
- Influenced by scripture and also the book of Ted Dekker, The Outlaw.
- The Smell of Death
- Dead Man Walking
