How is your aim?
One of the first things you learn in any kind of sport or work that involves hitting a target is to have a proper “sight picture” on that target. In other words, your aim has to be precise. Whether putting a golf ball, shooting a free throw, or busting a clay pigeon, you must have steady hands. You must see your target. You should even visualize hitting the target, or making the putt. You must practice. But more importantly, your aim must be accurate, based on your sight picture and how you see the goal.
It is the same in our Christian lives. I have made a simple acronym from the word A.I.M.. As we set our sights on a goal in Kingdom Work, we should always strive to be Authentic, Intentional and Missional. To drive the point home, the opposite of A.I.M. is M.I.A.. We don’t want to be Missing In Action or to be found lacking when it is time to produce for the Lord.
In this first of three blogs, we will look at being authentic.
Authentic:
Most of my ministerial work has been with youth/college age “kids” and with senior adults. I find it interesting that they are the two groups who seem to pick up on a person being phony quicker than anyone. Why is it that between age 25 and 65, people will gravitate to the some of the most unauthentic people and promises on the planet? Why is plastic programmed production value more important than sincere, significant and relational discipleship? We must be authentic throughout a person’s entire life journey. The prodigals will come home if we are authentic and consistent. The key to being authentic is when they come home we (the church) are the same as when they left to chase the world’s definition of success and significance. After all “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb. 13:8).
We should be authentic because God is authentic. We should be real because God is real. We should be full of grace and truth because God is grace and truth. God does not do anything by accident. God is the God of structure and organization. We are a holy people and have nothing to be afraid of. We have nothing to back up from, because we are who we are. We are authentic and authentically His.
As Paul put it so well in Romans, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16). But later, Paul went on to tell Timothy, “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know Whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day” (2 Tim. 1:12).
Why are we often afraid to be who we are and more importantly to be who we were called to be? Peer pressure is nothing more than caring more about what men think than what God thinks. I think Paul knew the Old Testament very well and would have us know what is found in Isaiah, “For the Lord GOD helps me, Therefore, I am not disgraced; Therefore, I have set my face like flint, and I know that I will not be ashamed” (Isa. 50:7).
Wow! What a definition of authenticity. Be authentic today!