V a l o r L e a d e r B l o g

Authenticity

If we aspire to be spir­i­tual lead­ers in ROTC and even­tu­ally the mil­i­tary, than we must decide to live as dis­ci­ples of Jesus; live authen­tic and trans­par­ent lives.  A big lie we allow our­selves to believe is that we need to have most every aspect of our lives together or at least pre­tend that we do.  It is nat­ural for us to hide what doesn’t look good.  Vul­ner­a­bil­ity is not our enemy but it our great­est tool to con­nect to a bro­ken world.  If we desire to have an impact on oth­ers then we must share our lives with oth­ers by reveal­ing our bro­ken­ness to oth­ers, not cover it up.

1^st Thes­sa­lo­ni­ans 2:8 says, Having so fond an affec­tion for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.

• How are we able to impart our lives to oth­ers if we are hid­ing sig­nif­i­cant parts from them?

Often in evan­ge­lism, we ask oth­ers to take a chance and trust what we are telling them but what we are offer­ing maybe the appear­ance of Chris­tian­ity.  “Come fol­low me as I fol­low Christ” should com­mu­ni­cate that I too am learn­ing how to walk, not that I have arrived (which is pride­ful).  I used to think that if other really knew the truth then they would never lis­ten to me. Some­times I still default to this think­ing but when I share the truth of where I am at and not fab­ri­cate the appear­ance of hav­ing it all together,  I usu­ally find myself iden­ti­fy­ing and con­nect­ing at a greater level with others.

It helps me to real­ize that it takes God a life­time to change my heart.  In a moment, I gave my life to Christ, but every day I am pre­sented with oppor­tu­ni­ties to allow God to save me from my sin­ful nature.

God give me a new heart.  Renew my spirit and trans­form my mind so that I  can live for more of you and less of myself.  Help me to gen­uinely put on love.  A love that brings about per­fect unity and authenticity.