God Thoughts
God Thoughts
Recently I heard a sermon about authenticity: being authentic and transparent to those who enter your life, especially those who become close. It was an excellent message, but when thinking it over, I just couldn’t escape the feeling that there was something missing, and it started to feel sort of like a message without a foundation. That there was an important foundation that needed to have been laid first, in order to build the house of meaning. And then I asked myself a question: can I be an authentic person without an authentic faith in God?
Authentic is just a fancier word for true, or real. Here’s a definition I found that I like: “Authentic people not only stay true to themselves, but they also embrace others for who they are.” (Dictionary.com.) So there’s truth involved. I think the foundation of authenticity has to be absolute truth, what I call God’s word, or just God. I don’t think the idea that everyone has their own truth works, because I don’t believe that idea is conducive to embracing others for who they are. I think everyone having their own truth is divisive and leads to conflict, bigotry and isolation. If your truth denigrates or dismisses my truth, how can I embrace you? The problem in our culture today is that we’ve substituted this feel-good “individual truth” for absolute truth, which is the one truth that brings us together and shows us the way to embrace and be authentic with each other.
Let’s take for example, religion. A big red flag, and probably one of the most divisive concepts ever. Christianity is my faith, but the divisive issues here aren’t exclusive to it. Other religions have divisions in belief too. There are hundreds of different denominations of Christian churches, each having their own “individual truth”. Has it been a good thing? I don’t think so. It’s caused division and dissension between believers. They don’t really embrace one another, although sometimes there’s an attempt (or a pretense). I remember when I first joined an organized religion, the little older ladies would pat my hand and say, “Aren’t you glad you finally know the truth?” And I was never authentic enough to say, “well, at this point I’m not really sure I know it. I’m looking for it.” Consequently, I’ve never been a big fan of “religion”. I much prefer God and His word.
The early church was blessed because Jesus taught them His pure, uncorrupted gospel. Same gospel that was preached throughout the Old Testament (which a lot of Christian denominations want to do away with). The Bible is plain, straightforward, authentic (in the sense that God is being totally authentic and transparent with you), and simple. It means what it says to you. It’s God speaking to you, and you don’t need an interpreter, even when you get to the prophets, because it interprets them, too. You just need to search if you want to learn.
There’s a fairly high probability that today you may not find authenticity outside of God’s word. Unfortunately, Jesus’s gospel has, down through the millennia, been corrupted by paganism, philosophy, and traditions, all the grandiose ideas and thoughts of men. But the authenticity, the truth, is still there, it just takes a little effort and desire to find it, and Jesus is always delighted to help.
So, back to the question I asked myself: How does my faith affect my ability to be authentic?
One of the many excellent points in the sermon was this: “God accepts us just the way we are. But He loves us too much to leave us that way.” That’s an awesome statement. I’ve found it to be profoundly true in my life. As I spend time with Him, as I listen, as I open my eyes and see the beauty in His creation, He’s making me into a better person. He’s making me less selfish, more thoughtful, less materialistic, less anxious, more peaceful. Will those things help me to be authentic and able to embrace others? Definitely. Being authentic feels good. And the better it feels the more I desire to be authentic and inclusive.
Here’s another awesome thought from the sermon. “When you spend all your time managing your image you become imaginary”. That’s an incredible insight, because that’s what we’re all doing, especially in this culture of social media. We carefully invent our image, put it out there, cultivate it, spend inordinate amounts of time brushing it up, polishing it, giving it little tweaks here and there, until we’re really nothing more than a figment of our imagination. And, as a result, our relationships are figments of our imagination too, because everybody else is a figment of their imagination. Nobody is really known, or seen, or heard, because we’re all imaginary beings. Not to mention how exhausting, and stressful, and actually really sad the whole thing is. We’ve almost completely negated the ability to embrace and love each other, because we have no idea who we, or they, are. Here’s a quote from a Bible devotional I just read this morning: “It isn’t helping anyone to not be the authentic person God made you to be. The world does not need a dulled shadow [image] of yourself; the world needs the most fully alive version of yourself you are able to give.” (Making Decisions In Uncertainty, Amy Seiffert, YouVersion.)
All ten of God’s commandments are incapsulated by love. God is love. His word promises: “The LORD your God in your midst, the Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:12.) Our world is full of hatred, and we desperately need love, but love does not exist in imaginary people. It only exists in authentic, real people. To answer my question? No, I can’t be authentic without an authentic faith in God.