As a young adult, trying to make sense of the religion I had grown up with was a challenge. I had had enough undeniable spiritual encounters with God to convince me of the reality of the gospel and God’s reality, but even in a strong Bible-believing church, it was hard to find anyone living a genuine faith that had them honestly struggling between belief and doubt. Faith was pretty much a given (at least outwardly) and so our Christianity consisted mostly of a conformity to certain standards for our lives. I conformed with the Christian peers I grew up with, but the main difference between us and non-Christians were the things we believed and did and didn’t do. I trusted our leaders, but at the same time they seemed distant to me. They fervently believed but their lives were not very transparent, so neither were ours.

Then I went to a Christian college that actually encouraged the struggle between faith and doubt. This was a good step. We were challenged to deconstruct our faith in order to make it truly ours and not just the faith of our parents. Some people “lost” their faith in this process (although I later came to the conclusion that they didn’t actually “lose” their faith; they just found out they never had one). But still there was never any real alternative to outward conformity. You ended up either rebelling or conforming.

So for most of my developing years, the line from the “What Has Gone Wrong” song was true for me: “I try to be what I know I should be, but I never seem to come through. Is everyone here as good as they seem, or like me, are they fakin’ it too?”

And then I came across the new covenant. In a way there’s nothing new here. It’s made up of elements that are all over the scriptures, Old and New Testaments. It’s just that in the passage in 2 Corinthians 2:12 – 4:12, Paul puts it all together in a way that makes sense especially to people liked me who struggled over how to live their faith in an honest way.

When I was at Wheaton College, I remember wandering into the nearby College Church and mounting the pulpit to see what it felt like to stand there and imagine myself preaching. I remember at that point bargaining with the Lord that I would go into the ministry on one condition — that faith would have to be real. I refused to maintain some kind of phony image that I had seen so many in the ministry do.

And five years later, sitting with three other interns studying 2 Corinthians in the office of Ray Stedman who made a lifetime studying and living the new covenant, I realized that God was answering my prayer right in front of me. Because what I was finding out was not just that it was okay to be open and honest with our lives as a Christian, it was required. Anything short of that was to give the wrong impression.

Just think about Moses, who put a veil over his face after being with the Lord because his face shown so much from God’s presence, that the people couldn’t look at him, but little did they know that he kept the veil on long after the brightness had faded away — a perfect illustration of us faking our spirituality when the glory really isn’t there.

Imagine what would have happened if Moses had taken off the veil once the glory faded, and the people would have said, “Hey Mo! No glow!” What would Moses have done? He would have had to say, “It’s not up to me. God is still with us; but He’s in charge of the glory. What you see is what you get. It’s just me, Moses.”

See? It’s the same with us, except for one big difference. We are ministers of a new covenant where God is living inside us by the Holy Spirit. Like Moses, we don’t have a veil on, but unlike Moses, we didn’t leave God on the mountain; we have God inside. So we can say, “It’s not up to me. God is still with us; but He’s in charge of the glory. What you see is what you get. It’s just me, John, but I’m not the only one here.