Love the Lord God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:37-39
A few years ago, the book Radical Candor, by Kim Scott, was published and it’s on my mental checklist of “books I will someday read”. Maybe it’s trendy to put “radical” in front of a noun or a quality you want to intentionally cultivate in your life, but I think Radical is so relevant in a broken world.
Radical is something arresting enough to capture our attention, and it extends far beyond Religion. Radical is active. Radical is a way of living and doing. As the Church, we should look Radical. We should BE Radical. We should be something so extraordinary — something so captivating, something so uncommon — that people are drawn to Jesus.
Over the last few years, I have focused on cultivating three values in my life, and while these values are individual aims, I believe that if the Church intentionally cultivates these three values, then we will look much more like the Church that Christ commissioned us to be.
1. Radical Love
2. Radical Courage
3. Radical Authenticity
Today our focus is Radical Authenticity. And we have some serious truth to drop, friends. Are you ready for it?
The Church people are the ones who might need to work on Radical Authenticity the most.
Yes, I said Church people. Yes, I attend Church, so I suppose I am talking about myself, too. In fact, I was a Church person in a past life. Today, I am a radically authentic person saved by Jesus. Hear me out — there’s a difference.
Before I explain, first I want to set the record straight. You, dear reader, are EXACTLY who God made you to be. You are GOOD. You are ENOUGH. You are LOVED. You are BEAUTIFUL. Just as you are RIGHT NOW. You are all of these things BY DESIGN.
So many of us “Church people” came to age in a Church culture wherein faith meant ticking boxes of oughts — and, mostly, avoiding sin. Sins of commission particularly. Our focus on sin fostered a culture of performance-based Christianity steeped in legalism and false reality. Friends, some of us grew up thinking that the desires and the dreams God placed in our hearts were trivial, and didn’t matter, and it was sin to even think about ourselves.
This is so sad, and I lived here in this place of rejecting my true self and my God-given identity for far too many years. In fact, long enough to believe my desires and interests weren’t worth too much, and I settled for so much less than this wild-crazy-beautiful-God-breathed adventure that I’m on today.
At 25, newly married and on a plane, I remember thinking, “I have everything I have ever truly wanted in life. I’ve had a good life.” WHOA. God had so much more for me. Like far beyond anything I could ever ask or imagine. He has much, much more for you, too.
The life God has for us is bigger than our wildest dreams, expansive and purpose-filled, and it’s centered right in the heart of the unique gifts and skills that God gave to you alone. God is a dreamer and an artist, and he had a beautiful plan for your life from the moment he knit you together in your mother’s womb.
Let’s unpack the truth of the scriptures because God has some really awesome stuff to say about YOU.
Psalm 139:13-14
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
Like me, you may have read Psalm 139 many times before. Paraphrased, David’s words and prayer to God are saying: God, you know me. You created me. Your works are good. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
For so many years, I took this passage as a comfort and not as a promise. Dear reader, you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
Did you know that when you reject your core identity that is actually sin? What I mean is, rejecting the authentic YOU that GOD MADE YOU TO BE is like saying to him, your work isn’t wonderful. I don’t accept your creation. I don’t accept myself. Self-rejection is coming into agreement with Satan and his lies that we aren’t good enough and akin to rejecting God’s craftsmanship.
The Hebrew word for knit, quashar, also means “to bind”. God bound you together in your mother’s womb; you were CREATED. You are not an accident, and you were planned and purposed long ago.
The Church needs to flip the paradigm and to overcome some deep lies that can be ingrained from an early age.
Self-love is not God-hatred, and self-rejection does not glorify God. The real sin lies in rejecting your true nature and the unique you God created you to be, and until we accept ourselves and love ourselves fully, authenticity will always be a reach.
Radical Authenticity must begin with self-love and it requires sincere vulnerability. It’s reflected in our willingness to embrace our imperfections and mistakes and to be transparent with those around us that we are not perfect.
Performance-based Christianity is Religion and legalism and striving. True Christianity, real Christianity, is Radically Authentic. It is flawed and vulnerable and free. Freedom from the jaws of perfectionism chasing us down. Freedom to be late because the kids blew up mac n’ cheese in the microwave, or because you’re sick and didn’t sleep all night, or are chronically ill and taking a shower that day is a victory. Maybe walking into church was scary but you did it anyway. God sees your heart and he’s cheering with you, friends. Over victories big and small.
Radical Authenticity is not only embracing our authentic selves — it is embracing the hearts of our fellow humans and loving them with God’s eyes, not human eyes. When we’re all mindful that God doesn’t make mistakes and we’re just different from one another, then we reflect the Radical Authenticity Jesus always intended for the Church.
1 Peter 3:8-1, MSG
0 Comments