I am getting ready to preach a series called “Authentic.” The goal of the series is to identify what makes something real verses what has become, maybe, a polished unreal dimension of our own perspective. Needless to say, I will not unpack this 4-week series on this blog today. However, I truly desire to pause your world and to look at the “real you” for just a moment, and ask the question, “Am I being the real me?”
The older I get, the more I realize there have been a few dreams on my bucket list that haven’t been accomplished. That causes me to do two things that are pretty significant in my own mind.
- It causes me to want to get serious about the things on that list.
- It causes me to getting really busy doing the things that are important to my life and calling.
When looking at those things under #1 and #2, I begin to really take inventory of those things that have true eternal value, and those things that are just human ideas and goals that are really nothing more than self and flesh. The stark idea that the “Real Me” largely consists of things that, if left to materialize in my life, will end up leading me further and further from Christ, and closer and closer to a bucket list of things that really destroy the “Real Me.” Things that will ultimately keep me from discovering all that God has for me and has called for me.
In studying Proverbs, I find more and more that the “Real Me” really can be opposite of God, thus it becomes so important that I really run hard after God more purposefully. Just in Proverbs 16 I’ve found some real truths that will shape me to be like Christ the more I allow me to be like Him…
Proverbs 16:1-3, “1 We can make our own plans, but the Lord gives the right answer. 2 People may be pure in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their motives. 3 Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.”
Proverbs 16:9, “We can make our plans, but the Lord determines our steps.”
Proverbs 16:32 & 33, “32 Better to be patient than powerful; better to have self-control than to conquer a city. 33 We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall.”
As I read these Proverbs and many more like them, I realize that the “Real Me” truly desires to be like Christ and to run with Him and after Him. The “Real Me” has the desire to reflect Christ in all that I do. The “Real Me” ultimately has one thing on the bucket list, and that is to hear Jesus say,
“Well done good and faithful servant!” Matt. 25:23
It is the counterfeit me, the me that was not created in God’s image that truly desires to run away from the “Real Me” – the one that is made in the likeness of Christ! So. Will you join me on the journey to be the “Real Me’, whose is made after the “Real Him” – JESUS!