The Christian should not wear one face at church and another at school, online, at work, or with friends. Christ calls us to integrity—to wholeness—to sincerity before God and men.…You may fool your parents, your pastor, or your friends, but you cannot be two-faced before God.

Let’s keep this question constantly before us: Who are you?

For many professing Christians, spiritual things are placed in one compartment of life while secular things are placed in another. We become different people in different settings. We speak one way at church and another way online. We act one way at Bible study and another way around certain friends. We present one face in worship and another face everywhere else.

In other words, we live divided lives.

We behave like Christians during worship services, Bible studies, youth camps, and church events, but the rest of the time we live in a largely secular manner—that is, as though our lives are not truly governed by Christ or deeply concerned with spiritual realities. The Bible calls this worldliness. And often, underneath it all, what we really want is simply to be thought of as “cool.” Bob Dylan once said: “Don’t know which one is worse, doing your own thing or just being cool.”

That desire to fit in with the world produces a divided life—a two-faced life instead of a unified Christian witness and divided living always creates inner turmoil. You cannot live with two faces for very long without becoming spiritually exhausted. It becomes a constant management problem: Which version of me do I present here? What language should I use around these people? What mask do I wear in this setting?

The Bible repeatedly describes this kind of divided heart:

The words of his mouth were smoother than butter,
But war was in his heart;
His words were softer than oil,
Yet they were drawn swords.
—Psalm 55:21

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