being real before my God

I went to Victory last friday night with Spatch (she came up for the weekend since she abandoned me here in Bendigo!). Sammy came with us but had to leave half way through. After church we met up with Luke and stayed up till 4am... I think I'm still recovering from that!

I hadn't been to Victory since before I left for Indonesia. I didn't go back for a few reasons. Firstly was falling apart and falling away when I came back, and then my "support network" moved elsewhere, so I landed in Castlemaine.

Nathan Claridge preached. I actually loved it. (You can find it here until they upload this fridays message) In a nut shell, he talked about exalting our feelings beyond God. How we can get so much into the mindset of "I don't feel like this so I don't want to worship you, God".. And I realised that so many times throughout the week, something happens, I continuously feel like crap, and therefore, God suffers. Worship is a place of breakthrough, and a place where God deserves our praise far beyond how we feel. In fact, when we get into that mindset, we don't declare God above all, because we can't even get him past our moods. It sucks!

I found myself repenting about the last, well, forever really, for doing this. And then was challenged in my thinking about what it truly means to be "real". It's a term that is very thrown around in Christian life, and it is indeed good to be "real", because you can tell when people are being fake, and it sucks! But I guess what I felt God was getting at was that we need to get real before God, and the reality of our outward flows from that. I was at a church a year ago and I left and was "real" about it. But in my "realness", I noticed that I was bitter, I backstabbed, I gossiped.

So I questioned God, if we're supposed to be "real", because that does make perfect sense, because God did create us who we are, but then by being real it causes us to be bitter, backstab, and gossip, what's the go?

I think that proverbs is full of things that shut this down. David continuously writes with really good wisdom on what to do when the going gets tough, in fact I'd have to quote almost the whole book. He doesn't encourage this term of "being real", but moreso, he speaks against being bitter, and anger, and ... just go read proverbs! :P

Throughout the years, I became so obsessed with being real, I forgot who to be real for. One friend put it to me this way: tell God EXACTLY how you feel. That's how the prophets did it. Just look at Jonah: "God, how could you! you wrecked my pretty tree!!!".. Job, now that's a classic example.

Being "real" seems to get into dangerous territory. We forget the transformation through Christ and forget about our testimony towards other people. If I weren't a christian, and I looked at an image of myself, and my "realness", would I want to be a christian?

And what's more, what is my motive behind my "realness"? Because does it leave me feeling better, usually no. Does it leave others feeling better, no. But it does get something off my chest, which is important (2 cor 1) oooh I'm getting a bit controversial now.

I'm not suggesting I should be fake, and pretend everything's ok, but that I be "real" in Christ, use biblical advice and prayer (seek ye first), before I surrender to my natural and sinful nature.

God Bless.