When I first received the idea for UNMASK a few months ago, I had no idea how deep this concept truly ran. I was dealing at the surface level of understanding—of self-awareness, authenticity, and recognizing the armor that we all feel the need to wear to get through our days in this world. This idea of unmasking has slowly unfolded week by week to where I am well beyond the scope of my original speech.
How can someone take that long to unmask?
It has taken us collectively centuries to put on the right amount of covering to get through our walks on the street, strolls through the grocery store aisles, pews of the church, and offices of the workplace. Just when we’ve thought to have masked enough, we find ourselves feeling raw and exposed to unexpected attacks. Another layer added for protection. Not peace—but protection.
This is not the divine intention for us.
Divine intention is for us to put those priorities behind the most important One.
Maybe you’re like me. I’ve said this scripture to myself over and over through the years. It’s a top contender for memorization and application to life’s necessities. But now I wonder:
Do we truly understand what the Kingdom of God really is—better yet, Who it is?
When we quote this verse, are we only speaking of our individual needs—our human needs?
Are we fully aware that we are to trade the colonization of one ruler for Another?
Personally, using the word “colonization” for the Creator of All makes me uneasy. Every time I read this in Dr. Myles Munroe’s books about the Kingdom of God it makes me cringe. He was, in fact, one of the most brilliant teachers of modern times. However, I wonder if his experiences with colonization—being Bahamian under British rule—gave him the language he best knew to express the dominion of God’s Kingdom on earth.
In my modern studies and experiences, using that word invokes a sense of negative connotation: oppression, marginalization, theft, forced conversion, white supremacy. Colonization, for many of us, is not a metaphor. It is a memory. A trauma. A present-day reality still working its way through our laws, churches, and bodies.
I imagine that someone looking on the outside in could see our view of Jehovah as that: One who picks and chooses who to center and who to cast aside.
And at this very moment, I ponder: is that a good thing for the greater good of all? Does that make “colonization” acceptable if the end goal is salvation? Is Jehovah the Colonizer of all colonizers?
Again, I cringe at the thought.
Yet this is the power of unmasking—it doesn’t stop at the individual level. It eventually demands that we unmask our theology too. That we ask: who gave us these words? Who handed us these frameworks? And do they serve liberation—or just control with a divine stamp?
This Kingdom that Jesus invites us into—is it not a radical undoing of every empire? Is it not justice, peace, joy in the Holy Ghost? Is it not where the first are last and the poor inherit the earth? That doesn't sound like colonization. That sounds like freedom.
So maybe we need a new way to talk about the Kingdom. Maybe we need to strip off the theological garments that no longer fit. Maybe unmasking means refusing to project imperial rule onto the God of the Exodus, the God of the Wilderness, the God who came down in flesh and flipped the tables.
Unmasking is sacred work.It is slow work.And it is liberating work.
Not just for me. For all of us.
May we keep peeling back the layers.May we seek not just the Kingdom—but the kin-dom.And may we unmask every lie that has made us afraid of God’s true face.
This is why we are called to deconstruct our understanding of God, His Word, and His Will. To tear down and rebuild. The unlearn…and then relearn.
Amen. And so it is.