AUTHENTICITY

Blog sermon comin' at ya:

My thoughts today are revolving around the idea of living a truly 'AUTHENTIC' life for Jesus. It seems the more 'real' someone is about themselves and their walk with Christ, the more of an impact they can have on others. This has me re-thinking the famous portion of Scripture that declares, "The truth shall set you free".

What if when we live 'truthfully'... it actually sets people free?

Being authentic requires admitting faults and weaknesses. I remember, while in college, hearing a pastor describe his anger towards and questioning of God after a car wreck had taken the life of his wife. His brutal honesty about how he was feeling and doing... has impacted the rest of my life. He wore no mask of fake happiness and supernatural joy, only brokenness and dependence upon a God he couldn't see... or even feel. It freed me up to passionately pursue a relationship with God, without the condemnation that came every time I'd slip up... or doubt.

So I find,... honesty has longevity.

Being authentic means you identify with those around you... ALL of those around you. How often has the world seen us Christians as thinking we are somehow 'better' than them. We even have a cliche that perfectly sums that type of thinking up, "Holier than thou". The person that lives in the reality that they are "saved by grace" and "but for the grace of God, there go I" understands that there are no 'levels' or 'degrees' for humanity. No one is higher. No one is lower. We've all sinned, and we've all been covered by the righteousness of God... a righteousness that has nothing to do with what we've done, and everything to do with the bloody sacrifice of a majestic Lover. This recognition causes the authentic individual to never walk past, look down upon, or consider unrelatable any other human being, but instead to see everyoneas someone that Jesus loves... and is worthy of our love.

So I find,... even those that do not validate my opinions... are pretty neat.

Being authentic means admitting that we can fall into the trap of just "doing" Christianity. How easily and how quickly can something wonderfully healthy and life-transforming become something of a ritual? Following Christ can be like that. It can be boiled down to accepting a set of doctrines and beliefs and setting into place certain practices and regulations that left to themselves... become lifeless and void of power. What a trap... and what a load of crap. Relationships include monotony, of course, but they also should include intense intimacy.

So I find,... unless I'm head-over-heels-in-love with the Master, serving Him becomes a drag.

Being authentic means we recognize that if we aren't careful, we will become part of a subculture that doesn't impact people or the world around us at all. One of the biggest blessings that I've enjoyed, that I didn't realize at the time, was having to work a secular job while attending Bible College. I would go to class each day from 7:30am to 12:30pm and then I'd rush to work at a lumber yard in Oregon from 1pm to 7:00pm. It was a busy four years for me, but a wonderful season where I learned that I couldn't survive in the "holy bubble". What's a "holy bubble" I hear you asking? Well, at Bible College everyone smiled, greeted each other with a hug, shared Scriptures with one another and spent huge amounts of time singing to and studying about God. Nobody doubted. Nobody lusted. Nobody sinned. It was glorious. It was uplifting. It was happy. It was a "holy bubble". Now, at work, it was a completely different world. Everyone cussed. Nobody hugged. Everybody complained. People back-stabbed and gossiped. It was... real. I saw many of my fellow Bible College students who needed employment come and go at the lumber yard over four years. Most of them didn't last. They couldn't handle the temptations, the pressures, the life outside the bubble. Many God-followers today struggle in this same way. They have no problem existing in their little Christian subculture. They enjoy their Jesus-community, and that's great. But if living in a "Jesus-community" means that we have removed ourselves from this world in totality, then how are we ever going to make a significant impact for the cause of Christ? God bless Bible Colleges, churches, youth groups, Bible study home-groups, Youth For Christ fellowships and all the rest - we need them, they're awesome! But may we never forget that the call is to be "IN the world"... but not "OF the world".

So I find,... sometimes I gotta step outside my "holy bubble" for the sake of those who are dying without authentically being introduced to the Love of my life.

What's so great about being "authentic"?

I'd suggest that it's only authenticity that will make an impact. It's significance echoes in eternity. It allows us to enter into real relationships with others and truly grow together.

But mostly... it sets people free. Starting with me.

Proud Dad

I spent some time yesterday talking with my two oldest sons and one of their buddies. Conor and Kolten will be moving soon, to a whole other state. While I know that it is only for 4-5 months, it's been something that I'm struggling with... as a dad who loves his boys. I've been having these moments where I get real sad and introspective. It's not something I was prepared for, to be honest. I know that I'll make it, but it's definitely a new season in my life... one that I'm not really excited about. All the feelings I've been having make the times I get to spend with my boys now... very precious. Yesterday's conversation was one of those times. As we sat at the dining room table, they described the vision they have for the lost and hurting.

I was blown away.

If you have never met my sons, Conor & Kolten, then let me describe them to you. They're both pretty handsome on the outside, although their long scraggly hair, unshaven faces, piercings, and tattoos might make you think otherwise. They always smell like they've been cooped up in the cab of a truck with burning incense, which they probably have. Their clothes always look as though they bought them at a thrift store for less than $3... and they probably did. That's just them. You get what you get. However, when one takes the time to dig past the rough exterior, they find two young men who have an insatiable passion for Jesus and an unrelenting obsession for others.

My sons began describing the culture they find themselves in, and the hurting individuals that have captured their hearts. "One young guy", they shared, "sings and cries and shouts about a void in his stomach that friends, sex, drugs, music, or alcohol can't seem to fill. Dad, it's like he's describing the God-void that you always hear spoken about in church, but he's describing it better than we've ever heard it before! Then he started saying how all the people in the clubs, who call themselves his friends... he hates. But he says that we're different. That we have something he really likes."

That's just one story my boys told me. They went on to explain how they've been caught up in multiple conversations with people who look just like them, but have this deep-seated hatred for Christianity. One young man told of how his father beat him and then would drag him to church the next day where his father served as a deacon. Again and again they run into those that not only dislike church and Christianity... they hate it.

Kolten and Conor are in a band, called The Nesmith. Their final concert is tonight, before they head out to Colorado. I wish I could let you all listen to their music. It's not normal music... it's like this incredibly deep cry of a generation. Their music affects me. Sure, I'm a proud dad. But the music reaches deep and calls out to people like nothing else I've heard before. Take a look at some of their lyrics:

"...I despise this superficial life, this fakeness I've concealed. Here I am, all of me. Hear my cry, hear my plea. My body is so feeble, vulnerable inside. Provide for me safe haven place where I could hide. I quiver in Your presence, how extravagant is Your love. I ache for more and more, for this real authentic love. People keep dragging me down, still I can't hear a sound. I'm lost but yet I am found. Wishing You were here, always shedding tears, i want to feel Your fear..."

"...God loves the one year old starving boy who killed himself just trying to get a smell of the same stagnant beans he ate last night and he would have eaten for the rest of his life. Jesus isn't here on the earth. No, He died so that we wouldn't burn and although He loves this little boy enough to die, He's not here so it's our job to hold him so tight. I'm no Trump, but I can treat myself to a bite to eat now and then, and I think I'll treat myself right now to a cheese burger, make it a double treat, four, five, six, give me the whole dang cow! Open your eyes so that you can see that this world is nothing like America. Open your eyes so that you can see that selfishness has sewn our eyes shut."

What if the way God wants to move today isn't like what we think?

Recently, in Kansas City, there was a huge rally. A prayer rally. Over 25,000 teens were supposed to have come, and united, they were asked to cry out for God to move in our nation. I think that's neat. Prayer is good.

However, what if, rather than simply hooting, hollering and screaming prayers into a microphone for the lost generation we find ourselves in, we are to simply be obediently infiltrating it... engaging it... loving it from the inside out?

I see and hear in my two sons... and other radical young people that I'm privileged to know... a brand new thing. It's an authenticness that, I believe, works. Sure, we need to pray. But what if, rather than screaming for God to revive us and stir us to repentance, we stopped beating our kids and pretending like we're okay? What if we stopped telling people they have a "God-void" and started listening to them describe it themselves?

What if we were simply there, wherever they are, not looking down, not scared out of our wits to speak, but also not holding a bull-horn or handing out tracts, not prayer-walking around their hang-outs, but engaging the culture not with the agenda to "save souls and fill heaven", but simply to love people who feel like crap? Of course we share Jesus, but we're always careful not to force Him. We 'share' Him. We share with our lives... the way we act... the way we care... the way we love.

Jesus' name is Emmanuel (Matthew 1:23). We're told in the Bible that His name means, "God with us". It's interesting to me that His middle name is 'with'.

What if all the Jesus-lovers, not only appreciated the fact that God is 'with' us, but also saw that our main job in this life is to make it known to this world that God is 'with' them as well?

How is God 'with' us? Really? Where is He? There's a massively growing number of people who are asking this question in one way or another. Where the heck is He?

My boys, in their unique way, are pointing people to His hiding place. I want to be like them. I want to reveal the authentic Jesus to a world that desperately needs to see Him... and know Him.