Jesus on authenticity

It’s funny how we try to be something we aren’t in the hopes of finding who we really are. Silly people.

Glad God loves silly people, hurting people, and people who look for love and significance in all the wrong places. He knows we are pushed into a tight space, a hard to break-out-of mold of the world around us. Yet, he urges us to take a different path, learn a different love, sing a different song and dance to different music. God is always leading us to a place of authenticity. He has created us to live in who He has made us to be, not who anyone else expects us to be. He wants us to be 100% His, and 100% real about who we are in Him.  It’s us who hold back.

We are comfortable in our old clothes of shame and fear. We are familiar with the groove we  have been walking in. So we settle. Settling for less than God’s best. Settling for imitations and plastic smiles. Settling for emotional pain when we can have real inner healing.

I wonder why we settle.

The Samaritian woman was used to settling too. She went from relationship to relationship. I’ll bet she just wanted to find herself in love. I’ll bet she just wanted to be special and find her place. But, man after man, and she was still empty and just going through the motions.

Meeting Jesus didn’t seem like anything earth shattering at first, but then he let her in on something…he knew her. She didn’t know him, but he knew her, reciting her past to her like he was an old friend who had walked it with her.

Perhaps that was what he wanted her to see. He was the Messiah, and though she didn’t now Him, He was going to give his very life for her redemption.

Love. Unreal.

What did he tell her was necessary to live differently?

Today’s Truth: John 4:23

“A time is coming when true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.”

He was pointing her to an authentic life of worship, a reality check of sorts. He was inviting her to take water that would quench her inner thirst.

This same Jesus knows you, and me….He is inviting us to authentic worship too. What is authentic worship? Laying down our life and trusting Him with the details. Looking Up To God and Living Out our Faith. Lifting hands to Him and commiting hearts to change.

Yes, Jesus is offering something that is different. He doesn’t want to squeeze us into a stuffy old box. He wants to take us out of the confines of self imposed rules and reguations. He wants us to live beyond others expectations. He wants us to trust our lives and days to the one who KNOWS us.

What would worshiping in Spirit and Truth look like in your life today?

If you get a chance read all of John chapter 4, let it speak to you. Let it tell you a story of hope.

Living with Joy….Debbie