Let’s be honest about our attitudes and addictions. If you sometimes have thoughts, feelings or choices that are not beautiful, you may realize that these can be hard to get rid of. When one addiction ends, another one usually takes its place. Sin is what we call our wrong thoughts and choices.

On the other hand, you might sometimes get the feeling that they’re-wrong-and-I’m-right. Too much of this feeling brings frustration, and sometimes even heartbreak. We can find it hard to be happy when there is so much wrongness in our world. It is easy to get discouraged when we see such little goodness around us, compared with the beauty that we know could blossom if everyone lived rightly. This may make it feel like living joyfully would be living in denial of what’s going on around us. Knowing, on the other hand, that there is something wrong with not being joyful, we can get confused about how God wants us to feel about ourselves and his world.

After Moses gave God’s people the commandments, many of them began to have trouble keeping them. Some who managed to live rightly developed the confused attitude that I just described. The Bible calls this attitude a veil, something that blinds people to how beautiful God and humanity truly are.

“But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.” -2 Cor. 3:15-18 

Assignment 4: According to the verses in our reading (2 Cor. 3:15-18), what must happen in order to take away the veil of pride? What do we look at in order to be changed from pride into his glory (beauty)?