During our normal weekly time set aside to process life, hold each other accountable, share the good and the bad, and memorize scripture, my mentor-friend asked how my time with God was that week. I said it was average, didn’t get me excited, that I just kind of went through the motions with prayer and Bible-reading. And she said, “So… you were faithful.” … Excuse me? What she said is not what we’re used to hearing. Some friends would counsel me to stop if I don’t feel like doing something. Others would say to figure out how to rekindle the passion, but for-goodness-sake don’t stay in that nothing zone where all your passion is gone and you don’t feel like doing what you’re doing. We love to have passion for what we’re doing. And we hate doing things we don’t feel like doing. But frequently, that’s the definition of faithfulness – doing what we have committed to do, doing what’s right, and doing what’s good, even when we don’t feel like it. Sometimes “going through the motions” is actually faithfulness and is the best, and only, thing you can do when emotions are running low. Buuut we love doing what we feel like, and we’ve started calling it authenticity.

Somewhere along the line we have equated being authentic with following along with our emotions. We have the attitude of: “If I feel it, I do it, and that’s the authentic me. And If I’m acting differently from what I really feel inside, then that’s hypocrisy, high treason to myself.” We’ve gotten into our heads the “idea that to live out of conformity with how I feel is hypocrisy, but that’s a wrong definition of hypocrisy. To live out of conformity to what i believe is hypocrisy. To live in conformity with what i believe, in spite of what i feel, isn’t hypocrisy, it’s integrity” (Thoennes). For those of us who follow Jesus and are pursuing our true selves that are only found in who God created us to be, Brett McCracken accurately says that, “Sanctification involves living in a way that often conflicts with what feels authentic.” Really, we’ve got two natures warring inside of us every day, but our “authentic selves” are not always the desires we feel on the daily. God is bringing us (as individuals and as humanity) back to our true authentic selves. McCracken continues “Hard as it may be to believe in the midst of our sinful thoughts and fleshly struggles, we were made to be perfect. Brokenness may feel more natural, but holiness is actually the more human state.”

We are covered not only by grace, but also by a call to obedience and holiness. Jonathan Lunde says, “Though always established in grace, each biblical covenant also includes demands of righteousness from those who trust in God’s faithfulness to fulfill his covenantal promises. This means that covenantal grace never diminishes the covenant demand of righteousness – righteousness that flows out of covenantal faith. As a result, faith and works of obedience will always be found in God’s true covenantal partners.” So we are to pursue “authenticity” but not the “what you feel like is what is authentically you” brand of authenticity that our culture loves. We are to pursue an authentic-holiness and authentic-obedience and as we do, we pursue our authentic identity in Christ. As we do, we are being faithful. Just like my mentor-friend’s point that my less-than-enthusiastic faithfulness to God during that dull week was just that – faithfulness to God, and exactly what I needed to be doing.