Pretty Faces
For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. – Galatians 1:10.
Venus, the cat, appears to be a Photoshop creation, although she is not. Venus is simply the result of being born the way she is. Her face is split perfectly with one side being black. On the black fur side of her face, she has a green eye; on the other side of her face, she has a blue eye and ginger fur. The cat’s human (aka owner), Christina, said, “This is just the way she was born, that’s it.” You can see a photo of Venus, on the cat’s facebook page at www.facebook.com/VenusTheAmazingChimeraCat The page has more than 61,000 likes, and there are photos of other two faced cats and dogs on the page. There are also videos of Venus the cat on YouTube. The National Geographic Magazine does have an excellent article online about the science behind what happened to bring about a two-face cat like Venus.
The Online Dictionary defines two-faced (As related to us humans) as being: “deceitful; insincere; hypocritical.” Also as being: “marked by deliberate deceptiveness especially by pretending one set of feelings and acting under the influence of another.” We now know what a two-faced cat looks like. If a cat is two-faced, you can easily identify the creature simply by looking at the face of the cat. However, two-faced humans are often much harder to identify, because outwardly their faces do not appear to be two-faced. Marilyn Monroe identified the problem when she once said, “If you are going to be two-faced, at least make one of them pretty.” That is the problem with identifying two-faced people, because their faces are often pretty, and often appear very innocent while beneath the surface in their hearts there is a much darker side.
The apostle Paul could have acted and could have spoken in a two-faced way. He could have said one thing to the new Gentile believers and another thing to the Jews who wanted Christians to continue to obey all of the old rituals that Jews had observed in the past. Paul chose to speak the truth in love. The Jews did not like it, but that did not make it any less truthful. Paul chose to obey God, and not the men who were pressuring him to compromise the truth. The fact that Paul chose to obey God and not men was evidence that Paul belonged to Christ, that he was “a bondservant of Christ.”
What about you? Do you profess faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? But at the same time, there is little evidence displayed in your life of your actually belonging to Christ, of your actually being “a bondservant of Christ?” Do you put on your “pretty” face on Sunday for church, but the rest of the week the darker side of your heart rules supreme? When you are with your friends, and you encounter some of your “church” friends, do you have to switch faces and put on your “pretty” face?
Life is psychologically much easier to live when we only have one face to put on in the morning. The apostle Paul gave us an example of living a life of truth, of always seeking to please God, and not men. Let us strive to do the same!
(Pleasing God by living truthfully.)