Part Nine

Wednesday night, in my sermon, I talked about a subject in a negative light.  Since then, after much thinking, I’ve become quite convicted about it. I was preaching about belief and how our belief system drives our entire lives. All of which is true. However, at one point in the sermon I said, “And I am not talking about fake it till you make it. That’s just behavioral modification, which never works.” That statement is true, but it is also not true. Just like with many of the things of God this subject is just not as simple as we would like it to be.

In my mind, “fake it till you make it” is hypocrisy. It means, to me, act like you are something you are not until you become something you want to be. Sounds a lot like mystical hocus pocus to me.  I imagine a bunch of people showing up on Sunday morning dressed in nice clothes, singing songs about God and saying things like, “praise the Lord” or “God is good”, in hopes someone will think they are holy. Or maybe hoping their religious “Christianese” will get them some kind of notoriety. That kind of acting drives me crazy. In this context I feel like we need to be open  and honest. We should not try to put make-up on our infirmities, but we should be honest about them and be healed from them. However, while there is hypocrisy in trying to be something you are not so people around you will not see who you truly are, there is something to be learned about lining yourself up with truth. Which is not “fake it till you make it”.

When I was young I used to dress up like my dad. I would put on his work boots, I would wear a hat like he did, I would carry a note pad like him, I would say things like he would say I would do whatever I could to be like my dad. My sister on the other hand played with baby dolls and played house. She would play like she was cooking supper and changing diapers. I hate to admit this, but sometimes she would make me play like I was her husband, yeah I know. So why would we do that? Because we were lining ourselves up with what we had been created to be. God created me to work and provide, and he created my sister to “make a home”. We were not even close to being old enough to do what we knew we were meant to do, but inside of us, deep down, we knew we were created for “that”, so we pretended. We called it playing, “make believe”.

Why would we call that “make believe”? Some would say it’s because we are making something up in our minds, we are imagining things, but I think it is much deeper than that. I think we are making ourselves believe what is true by our actions. By putting the two words together, “make” and “believe” the process is revealed. You could say it like this, we are making what we believe to be true by acting out that belief even though it is not yet fully realized.

So what is the difference between “make believe” and “fake it till you make it”? Well one says we are acting out what we already believe to be true, the other says we are being a fake in hopes that one day we can achieve a goal. One says, “I know what I am meant to be so I am going to act like that until I grow up in to it.” The other says, “I know what I am supposed to be so let me do that in hopes that one day I will get there”. See the difference?  Let me give some application.

Let’s say you get saved. And after your salvation you start to want to walk with Christ more deeply and so you chase after him with all you have. You read your bible and the words just jump off the page, you pray for a red light to turn green and it does, you go to church and you just feel the presence of God all around you. It is awesome and you love every minute! But then something happens, a dry spell. God feels distant. You bible is boring. Your prayers seem to hit the ceiling and come back down. Church is boring. What do you do? You have three options.

First you can just quit. Give up. Decide it’s never going to be the same. Say ignorant things like, “I don’t have to go to church to worship God” and “God speaks to me, I don’t have to read his word” or “I pray while I am driving to work”. Say what you want, those are all just excuses to not even try and walk with God anymore. It’s a cop out. And it’s a dangerous place to be. 

Second, you can “fake it till you make it”. You can go to church and pray and read you bible in spite of the dry feeling. And this is right! But hold on and check your motives. Fake it means you are an imposter. Fake it means you are going to pretend to be something you are not until God does what he is supposed to do and make you get that feeling again. Fake it till you make it means there will be an end. It says, “I am going to be a fake, until I make it to my destination.” The question is, then what? You’ve arrived? Really? If you have arrived what will you do if the dry feeling comes back?

Third, you can “make believe”. You still go to church, pray and read your bible in spite of the dry feeling, but here is the difference, you do it because it is who you truly are. You are not looking to “make it” to a destination, you have already “made it”, now you live as if you have “made it” and God will transform you to look more like his Son Jesus. But you have to trust.

Now we are getting somewhere, it’s about trust. One way says, “I will trust in my ability. I will work harder, do more, pray more and do better. I will give it my best. I will be a better Christian!” See all those “I”’s? I am trusting in my own ability. I will fake it till I make it. But make believe, it’s something different all together. It says, “God your way is better than my way. Your law is better than my law. Your Word is more powerful than my logic. So I will make believe I am what you say I am.” Now that will change your life!

The issue comes down to motive. If I am going to fake it till I make it so that I can get the results I want and then go back to what I was then it will never work. That’s behavioral modification. But, if I “make believe” I am already what God says I am so I can be transformed into “that”, then I am on the road to being more like Christ.

God does not want a fake. He wants you. All of you. Exactly like you are. Not some future version of you. He does not want you to try and clean up your act so he will like you more. He does not want you to stop sinning so that he can bless you more. He loves you just like you are. But, he does want you to have true life. And God knows that true life comes from living as you were created to live.

Play “make believe” today. You may be surprised how it changes your life.