Authenticity

I was thinking today about something my cyberfriend Danny once said. Paraphrasing his words his thought went something like this:

The point of studying and reading the Bible is not to know the Bible ... the point is to know God.

Sad how sometimes we can know biblical details and not really know the living Word. So often we can know all of the biblical stories and miss the bigger story of the bible. We can know the Hebrew and Greek definitions of love and mercy yet live our lives in ways that seem to indicate that we do not understand the words at all.

It reminds me of what Jesus said about wolves in sheep's clothing. Here is the KBV paraphrase of that passage in Matthew 7:

Be on guard when you come across people who seem to know what the scriptures say but do not act in ways that are commensurate with what they seem to know. Evaluate their actions by the standard of the fruit of the Spirit. God's children bear spiritual fruit - phony Christians just don't.

Just in case you are wondering.. here is how the KBV paraphrases that fruit of the spirit passage in Galatians:

The character of an authentic, Holy Spirit influenced, follower of Jesus is replete with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.. they have the law of God written in their heart and their lives reflect it.

I guess that word authentic is the one that I think best characterizes what I am trying to say. Authenticity is the idea that your inner and outer lives are in harmony with each other. For a believer this authenticity is first manifested when we confess Jesus.. this is the KBV of that passage in Romans 10:

Salvation happens when your heart acknowledges that Jesus is Lord and believes that He was raised from the dead and is alive today. The fruit of this inner revelation is telling others what you know in your heart.

From our spiritual infancy a battle rages between our inner and outer being. The outer being is always happy to perform religious acts that cost us nothing.. especially when we are around other religious folks. Unfortunately these acts seldom make a difference in the world because they are seldom reflective of the Spirit's fruit and are usually acts initiated by the outer being.

Living an authentic spiritual life is what I think the scripture means when it says to walk or live in the Spirit. I think that it is difficult to live an authentic spiritual life because it is so easy to live from our outer being and to lean on our own understanding.. authenticity is not that easy.. guess that is why we need to trust Him with ALL of our hearts.