At a recent pastors’ conference that focused on the spiritual life of pastors, the speaker said, “Inconsistency does not equal inauthenticity.” Which is a mouthful to say if you say it out loud! But aside from pronunciation challenges, its thought is very much worth considering when it comes to the spiritual life of any Christian.
When it comes to the life of a Christian, we all know what it is like to be inconsistent. It is very easy to count all the ways, right?! So, with the Apostle Paul, we are left to say in the words of Romans 7:15, “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Such words give a clear picture of inconsistency!
So, the questions is: Where does our inconsistent life of faith leave us? What does it suggest when we inconsistently follow our Lord? This brings us to the word “inauthenticity.”
If we pull apart the word “inauthenticity”, we find the word “authentic”. Which is quite familiar to us. For example, we might say that a certain restaurant serves real authentic Italian food. So, the idea of authentic means that something is genuine, real, and undisputed. But on the other hand, we get the opposite of authentic when we add the letters “in” to it. Inauthentic means that something is not genuine, not real and is to be disputed.
So, here is the problem. When our walk of faith is inconsistent, the devil, the world and our guilty conscience would suggest that our faith is inauthentic. Such voices would dispute our faith and say, “It’s not real. It’s not genuine.” Thereby suggesting that our faith is not true at best and non-existent at worst.
But here is the thing. The Bible shows us that a Christian’s walk of faith is often a picture of inconsistency. In other words, if the Apostle Paul experienced inconsistency in his walk of faith so will we! To say it another way, as we live in the weakness of our flesh our walk of faith will be inconsistent.
So, here is the point: The authenticity of our faith is not found in how perfectly we live. Instead, the authenticity of our faith is found in the One whom our faith holds to. To say it another way, our God-given faith always has an object and the proper object of our faith is not ourselves or our works. Instead, the proper object of our God -given faith is Jesus and His perfect works done on our behalf. The proper object of our faith is seen in Titus 3:4-5 that says, “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy…”
So, if we were to sum up the Christian life, we might say, “We are often consistently inconsistent.” But the Good News is that Jesus has us covered and gives us faith that is not found in our consistency. Rather, we are given faith that holds to Christ who is always genuine, always real, and always without dispute. And therefore, as our faith holds to Christ, we have a faith that is as genuine as can be.
God’s peace to you in Jesus,
Pastor Tuma