Skip to main content

Go ahead...be undone

God gives out Wisdom free, is plainspoken in Knowledge and Understanding. He’s a rich mine of Common Sense for those who live well, a personal bodyguard to the candid and sincere. He keeps his eye on all who live honestly, and pays special attention to his loyally committed ones. (Proverbs 2:6-8)

Let's look at two traits described in this passage - being sincere and steadfast. To be sincere, one must be free of hypocrisy, deceit, or falseness; totally earnest in their pursuits; genuine or real in their living. To be steadfast, one must be fixed in one's direction - what we may refer to as being steadily directed. This also calls for us to be firm in our purpose, resolute; firmly established in our path. For the one whose life is tapped into the wisdom, knowledge and understanding which only comes from being intimately connected with Christ, these traits are assured, but we must work to see them incorporated into each and every area of our lives. Most of us desire to live free of hypocrisy, yet when it comes to being totally "real", it is quite a different story, isn't it? We somehow perceive we will be "judged" for being who we 'really' are, so we "play act" a little to kind of "cover up" what we think others don't want to know about us. Truth be told, the other person is probably doing the same thing. Steadfastness is something we equate to the "never say die" mentality. We label someone as steadfast when we see them going the extra mile, undaunted by failure, or simply "plugging away" even when others have given up. When the going gets hard, most of us wish someone would actually come alongside and just tell us it is okay to quit!

God expects sincerity. Plain and simple. No backing down on this one, friends. There is something which can only be displayed in the sincerity of our lives, so trying to be something other than what we really are is doing God's grace in our lives a disservice! Sincerity in a scriptural sense is really the evidence of pure desires and motives. We all veer from this at times, but God knows the intent of the heart and he is not distracted by our failures! In fact, he is encouraged when we come back to him with our failures and actually lay them at his feet. He knows there is something he can do in us at that point. Look at what our passage says: He is a personal bodyguard to the candid and sincere. A bodyguard is an "escort" of sorts - purposed to protect the one they are escorting. God has his eye on us, even in the midst of our failure, and his purposed plan it to protect us! God also expects steadfastness. If you ever struggle with sincerity even a little bit, you probably also struggle with this one, as well. Sincerity opens the door for us to be steadily directed in our path. When we are real about our struggles, God is consistent in his direction. Consistency is one of the character traits of a good bodyguard. He is ever vigilant to keep an eye on specific things which could potentially 'trip us up'. His vigilance is unwavering. We can stand assured, God is steadfast in his commitment to us, even in our wavering condition! His vigilance over our lives never ends.

Sincerity and steadfastness give us a pretty solid foundation upon which we might walk. I know this because I struggled with sincerity for a long time. I tried to hide behind all kinds of facades - both good and bad. Then one day, I came to the realization it was too hard keeping the facades straight! I could not remember which one I wore in which circumstance. Maybe you have found yourself in the same place. What you lack in sincerity you will reveal as lacking in steadfastness because the foundation is not solid! Remember, God doesn't expect perfection - he examines the motives (the heart). Just because the heart is sincere doesn't mean every action will be perfect. It means we will easily recognize when we aren't acting as we should! It also means we will quickly seek to rectify the wrong action! There is a relationship between the sincerity of heart and the firmness of the foundation upon which we stand. If the heart is fickle, constantly moved this way and that by every emotional whim, the foundation will be pretty shoddy. The closer we get to being real with God, allowing him to make us "comfortable" with who we really are, and then allow him to remove the masks we wear, the better the foundation will be in our lives. God keeps his eyes on all who live honestly - he pays special attention to those committed to living according to his purpose. It cannot be said any better! We may be a little shocked to examine ourselves in the light of God's Word - seeing ourselves as we really are. In the moments which ensue after we first recognize the lack of foundation, we may feel a little "undone". Yet, it is in our "undoing" that God is free to begin his "doing" in our lives. Just sayin!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

What did obedience cost Mary and Joseph?

As we have looked at the birth of Christ, we have considered the fact he was born of a virgin, with an earthly father so willing to honor God with his life that he married a woman who was already pregnant.  In that day and time, a very taboo thing.  We also saw how the mother of Christ was chosen by God and given the dramatic news that she would carry the Son of God.  Imagine her awe, but also see her tremendous amount of fear as she would have received this announcement, knowing all she knew about the time in which she lived about how a woman out of wedlock showing up pregnant would be treated.  We also explored the lowly birth of Jesus in a stable of sorts, surrounded by animals, visited by shepherds, and then honored by magi from afar.  The announcement of his birth was by angels - start to finish.  Mary heard from an angel (a messenger from God), while Joseph was set at ease by a messenger from God on another occasion - assuring him the thing he was about to do in marrying Mary wa

A brilliant display indeed

Love from the center of who you are ; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply ; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. (Romans 12:9-12) Integrity and Intensity don't seem to fit together all that well, but they are uniquely interwoven traits which actually complement each other. "Love from the center of who you are; don't fake it." God asks for us to have some intensity (fervor) in how we love (from the center of who we are), but he also expects us to have integrity in our love as he asks us to be real in our love (don't fake it). They are indeed integral to each other. At first, we may only think of integrity as honesty - some adherence to a moral code within. I believe there is a little more to integrity than meets the eye. In the most literal sense,

Do me a favor

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. (Philippians 2:1-4) Has God's love made ANY difference in your life? What is that difference? Most of us will likely say that our lives were changed for the good, while others will say there was a dramatic change. Some left behind lifestyles marked by all manner of outward sin - like drug addiction, alcoholism, prostitution, or even thievery. There are many that will admit the things they left behind were just a bit subtler - what we can call inward sin - things like jealousy,