Living Your Authentic Life

Authenticity.

Let’s have an authentic conversation. As a woman’s life coach I do a lot of talking and asking of questions to my clients.  I do a lot of imparting to them and sharing of my heart.

I find that transparency is a great way to reach the heart of women. Being transparent helps them see themselves and if they see that someone else has been through their pain place they have hope to come out.

One of the first questions I ask them is if they are living an authentic life? I ask them if they are living a life they were meant to Iive in the truest way towards God. I also ask them, among many other questions, is if they are not living authentic, do they want to spend the rest of their lives the way they are living them now?

The answers are always, “No, I’m not living authentic. I don’t know what that is for me. No, I’m not living my truest life towards God. No, I don’t want to live the rest of my life like I am now.”

This is what I love about coaching. Women answer these questions and more, not having a clue to their purpose, destiny or direction. But, then through coaching, they discover who they are, why they are and what God has for them. They also discover what God did for them.

Let’s face it, we put on a lot of masks. We wear a mask for others and for ourselves and we are not fooling anyone. Life is short and the older you get it is getting shorter.

If I asked you if you are living your authentic life, what would YOUR answer be? Do you even know what that looks like?

A few years ago, I was living an authentic life or so I thought. I was in the middle of the worst struggle and pain of my life. To make matters worse I was a Christian walking in blatant unforgiveness for my husband and for a woman he was in an affair with. I felt totally justified in it because of the pain I felt. I hated the other woman for about 3 years. I had intense angry for my husband. I wanted them both to feel some pain as I was in. I didn’t want them blessed or to have freedom of God. I just felt they didn’t deserve that for their “purposeful, sinful and selfish” acts towards my family. They hurt me and mostly hurt my sons.

I feel no shame over telling you this now because I am free of that but I know some of you reading this are there. If you are not there, you may be entering that dark season soon. I want you know that you can’t stay there and you must get free.

Until I was willing to really be real with myself and let that hatred and unforgiveness go, I was not really living the authentic life I was supposed to be living. The one that Christ died for me to have. No way was that going to happen. God will not overlook our mess. He will cover it by His blood. He will restore us after we OBEY Him. He will help us and lead us to a place of His truth. Not our truth. But He will not overlook the mess in our lives and our willful sin. He will not look the other way while we say we are forgiven and right with God and keep on in our willful sin no matter how much we justify it.

Authenticity starts with being honest about where you are in a situation and looking at what you need to change. It’s you taking a long look at you. It’s you righting a wrong you have done to others. It’s you be accountable. It’s you owning up to your life and what you have done. Not sweeping it under the rug.

I write this because when more of us, women, become more open and transparent sharing our place of pain, it helps other women to come out of hiding and get free. We all have been in vulnerable and painful life places and we need to tell our story so that others will be free to tell theirs.

Freedom is contagious, yet freedom is costly.

I am a woman of immense integrity and I want to encourage other women to do the same. Live the same.

Romans 6 is a great passage of scripture. I won’t quote the entire thing here but highlight it.

When you say that you have come to Christ, really come to Him, your old life is dead, your old man is dead. The cross set you free from your old man that sin nature and selfish life style. When Jesus died so did you and He died not only for you but as you. When Jesus was buried, He took your old man with Him and the old man can’t ever be resurrected. He left it behind.  It is gone. It is finished, forever. A new version of you was raised from the dead through the Holy Spirit and glorious workings between the two of you has begun. You are to be walking in a new life. A totally different life. An authentic life.

Your old self is dead and everything that is connected with that life cannot make it past the grave and nothing can separate you from God.

So if you are saying that you are a Christian but still living in some old ways as before or connected to that, you are not living to your real life in Christ and not living an authentic life. You may be in deception and do not even know it. I say to you wake up.

If you are still living a selfish lifestyle, sin lifestyle of any kind….you are not dead. The old you is not dead and a new you has not be raised that you are supposed to be walking in. There is no way, no way at all that you can still be a slave to the same sin you were in and say that you are walking with Christ. It is not possible.

All that should remain of your old life is an attachment through memory of a sin habit and that can be broken.

My dear friend, the old you was shattered at the cross so you can live an authentic life in Him. He loves you so much that He truly has taken care of, forever any old sin nature you had. You can start over. You can start over today. You can walk in all that He has for you.

What are you living today? Make a change. Make an authentic decision that only you can make.

Selah.