Authenticity: real is real

Authenticity is real and it can't be anything but the real thing.

When you're real then what you do is real. 

Simple and true.  Real is real.  

Being authentic comes up against a lot of the things we never realized were only images.  You might think you're authentically about something, but when the fire tests your authenticity it reveals who you really are.  

These fires blaze through our decisions, they're our values, and they're our choices.  Okay so decisions and choices are the same thing, but the point is....soon enough the real you is exposed.  The you behind the hidden heart.  You might be able to have an image of who you think you are or what you think you're all about, and that could be based on what you know to be "good" or "right" in your mind, but all that knowledge means nothing when it comes to who you really are.  I can know a lot about what a doctor does, what a doctor looks like and how a doctor speaks.  But that does not make me a doctor.  I may be able to look the part if I stole a white coat and stethoscope, but I would not actually be a doctor because the qualities I mentioned are only the most obvious.  However, behind the obvious lies a complex and deep inner character of someone who had to decide that they were going to dedicate 7 hours a day for months to study for the MCAT exam, then they were likely going to pull out a scary amount of money on loan, risking a lot of debt for the next 10 years, then skip out on a lot of fun things they saw their friends doing to stay home and memorize which tendons connect to which bones and what happens when an artery coagulates, and instead of a salmon salad they had instant ramen every night.  The point being, the kind of person that wants to be a doctor is determined.  If I can say nothing else about their character it would be to say they are definitely diligent.  Now they could have other great qualities like kindness and gentleness, but those are what make a doctor.  Diligence and determination make a doctor because the decisions require giving up a lot and taking risks.  In that way who we are in life is revealed by our decisions, not our obvious appearances.  

As someone who says that they love and enjoy God and desire to know Him more, it's about my decisions more than appearances.  At the end of the day, only you know what's real and what's not.  What's happy and what's just an apathetic or will-less "whatever".  I think there are values that a believer can check themselves with to see if what they think matches what they know.  For me this has been two things:

First, I ask the Spirit, do I genuinely love people so that I see them the same way I see God?  In other words, are people or each person I encounter in life as valuable to me as God?  Or are they just means of doing good or being charitable; do I see them and not just their reactions to me.  If I see them as the latter then I might be a charitable person or a nice person, but it does not reveal me to be a follower of Jesus unless the first outcome is happening.  

(John 13:35: "By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.")

Second, I ask, am I in need of being reminded that God is there because I can't do this alone?  Am I committing everything to His Sovereignty so that no matter what I trust that He is having His way which is obviously good even if it may not look that way to me at first?  This is important because it means I'm always doing whatever I'm doing with God...and this becomes particularly important when things don't go as expected or as planned in my mind, or if I am planning too much ahead of time without room for the unknown.  All I need to remember is that God has a will which is being done, and my will is always there noticing that with more and more thankfulness to be in His.

(Isaiah 55:11- "so My word that comes from My mouth will not return to Me empty, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.") 

I'm sure there are other indications that might help me see the condition of my hidden heart, but those two have been the most effective ones in my life lately. 

I watched the hunger games (warning: movie spoiler in this paragraph), and the story is about a girl who loves two guys.  One guy is the one she has grown up with and who appears to have the same values as her and who loves her very much, and the two of them are best friends.  The other guy sort of messes up a lot and gets rejected by her at first because he appears to be some random rich kid, but he falls for her regardless of how she treats him.  He also ends up having his mind messed with and tries to kill her.  However, one of the end scenes has the first guy (her best friend) who decides to be a part of an attack on civilians, not as his idea but for him it meant freedom and the decision fit into his values....and that one decision revealed what he really loved, and more than her it was freedom for a nation. This wasn't a bad thing, it just made him someone different than what she had probably expected.  He would make a great leader or soldier, but not her lover.  She has to pick between the two for who she will choose as her lover not as her fellow soldier.  The other guy shared core values with her, difficult decisions that may not have been ethically stable, but they shared a similar value of every human life even if at the expense of their own or something threatening, and he was also more about the immediate people in his life, and in the end even though he tried to kill her at one point (because he was brainwashed) at the core of who he was and what he valued it showed through his decisions.  

You can't hide forever what's in the hidden heart. 

Eventually it will be revealed, and probably is being revealed in our everyday decisions.

It was weird, but watching that movie filled me with new strength.  It made me want to walk fearlessly into authenticity.  To be who I am in Christ, regardless of what is seen or what people might think or say.  The truth will unfold, and there is a sense of relief and hope in knowing that.  For now, and for much of this life only God fully knows what's inside of my heart, and I know, too, only through relationship with Him. 

“This is what the Lord God says: Woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing." 

There is always our will and God's will.  The difference is that God's will is always getting done, while our own is liable to disappoint and fail because we might have different agendas than God.  We might have ideas for what life should be about or how God should and will make us happy, but we hold on so tightly to these expectations or pictures in our minds that when life happens, we see nothing.  It is only when we are in relationship, authentic communion with God, that we begin to see what He is doing unfold in our lives.  Less and less is the question of "why God?" because more and more it becomes "what does this mean?" The difference between the two questions lies in our trust in God, because asking why is more like demanding that God explain Himself or asking that God give us a reason for His reason, which is absurd since there is nothing above God's reason.  Exodus 33:19 states that God will have mercy on...the good people?  The right people?  The clean people?  No.  It says "I will have mercy on who I have mercy."  There is no reason for why He does what He does because no reason exists above His will.  

Asking "what does this mean" is openness to right interpretation.  Does God ridicule or criticize or condemn your life or does He interpret it as His plans for you so that you have no fear of falling from that good and perfect plan as you inwardly desire Him and His will more and more?  He says, "My sheep know My voice, and follow Me, and nothing can snatch them away from Me." (John 10:27-28) Whenever I feel or hear the threat of being wrong or messing up or being too far from who I am supposed to be, I silently sit before God in honesty and He speaks a better word that rises within me to follow Him rather than the accusations piled against in my mind.  I know His voice, and I know it well because it always leads me to life.  I follow His voice, and His alone keeps me safe. 

Exodus passage continued:

"You did not go up to the gaps or restore the wall around the house of Israel so that it might stand in battle on the day of the Lord."

Authentic believers care about the church.  They care about the body, the people, each person with a name ...matters.  Nobody should slip through the gaps or be left in their misery, because authentic people who commune with God know that this battle is not against flesh and blood (he or she or they are not the enemy), but that God cares about His sheep and would even be willing to leave 99 to search for one lost one.  It's not about the numbers but about each and every one of His own that matters.  I may not be able to know each and every person, but I can focus on the in front of me, next to me, or near me so that everywhere I go there is someone to care for.  

Now I'm not saying that if you don't possess these qualities then you are not authentic, or maybe ...maybe I am.  Because I don't possess all these qualities in my inner character, yet that does not mean they are not true.  The Word is true and God is true, even if that makes everyone a liar, including myself. 

(Romans 3:4- "By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”). The reason I'm pointing these things out about authenticity is to show us and myself how much grace we receive each day as we admit to the truth about our hearts--as we take this journey with God of honesty and cultivate an authentic relationship with Him.  The hard part is seeing how far and evil we are, but the glorious part is being washed in the gospel and in His will every single time.  There is no fear in His perfect love.  The goodness of God outweighs the evil in the world ....there's no comparison!

This means that even when we have moments where we begin to lose hope, we see that we only began to lose hope because we first trusted in God to do a good work, and what we expected God to do is not what we see, yet that does not mean He did not do a good work nor does it mean that we did not hope in Him, it must mean we are now at the place where we let go of our expectations and trust more deeply in God.  This inception of hope and trust goes deeper and deeper and deeper as we walk honestly and hopefully and trustfully with God for the completion of His will. 

“My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and speak lying divinations. They will not be present in the fellowship of My people or be recorded in the register of the house of Israel, and they will not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord Yahweh."

Now when the wall has fallen, will you not be asked, ‘Where is the coat of whitewash that you put on it?’

You profane Me in front of My people for handfuls of barley and scraps of bread; you kill those who should not die and spare those who should not live, when you lie to My people, who listen to lies.”

Ezekiel 13:3, 5, 9, 12, 19

Real is real.  A coat of whitewash cannot withstand the day of its destruction by God, but the one who has put their hope and trust in God as their refuge will never be abandoned.  

Real is real.  

Be real about trusting God for the outcome.

Jmegrey