“…put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

In “The Happy Hypocrite” Lord George was an immoral man with a bloated face. 

He fell in love with a lovely young lady. He figured that she would never love him back. So, as the story goes, he covered his face with the mask of a saint. She was deceived and finally agreed to marry him. (Remember, it’s a story.) 

They lived happily together. But then a lady from Lord George’s wicked past turns up and threatens to expose him. ‘Take off the mask!’ 

He complies, thinking he will be discovered. However, underneath his saint’s mask is a saint’s face! His looks have changed so that he began to look like the person he was trying to emulate. 

Because he loved the young lady, and because he wore it in love, and because he tried to emulate the saint whose mask he had been wearing, it actually changed him. He wasn’t who he was before.* 

Let’s be honest. Our intentions are not always honourable. There are times when we all wear a mask to metaphorically hide. Today’s devotional isn’t meant to provide excuses or justifications. It is, however, meant to remind us that even our feeble and misguided efforts can be used by a God of transforming grace and power. 

Your sins are not bigger than God’s grace. And your mistakes are not beyond the redeeming reach of your Maker.

In faith, and by the power of his Spirit, God uses our shabby efforts—and even those with misplaced intentions—to transform us into the one we are trying to emulate, Jesus Christ, one small step at a time.

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Notes:

-The Up Devotional is published 5 days a week (Monday-Friday) and returns on January 12, 2026.
-Bible quotes are from the ESV.
-*See the story in: Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 80.