About a week ago I sat down to write, and a letter to the Christian “bad girl” flew out of my finger tips. I figured some of my friends and family could relate. I thought maybe it would be a nice conversation starter. I had NO idea it would get shared almost 70,000 times for the world to see.
I also had no idea how angry it would make some people, especially other Christians. The thought simply never crossed my mind.
I ultimately had to turn off the comments because, well, it got to be a bit much. But from what I read, some of the main complaints from other Christians were:
-Being a Christian and a “bad girl” doesn’t work. A Christian bad girl is a oxymoron.
(**Please note, there was a reason “bad girl” was in quotes and why I said “Jesus doesn’t see us as bad girls at all, but as daughters”.)
-If you continue to choose to sin you do not love God and/or your heart is not right with God.
-Christians should be striving to be like Jesus, and therefore doing things like swearing and drinking wine means you are not Christ-like.
-A whole lot of scripture was quoted about turning away from sin.
Honestly, I don’t entirely disagree with some of these points. I am certainly not going to argue with people about it over social media. But I do feel the need to clarify a few things, especially in regards to who this letter was actually intended for.
I wrote the letter to the people who felt their past was too bad to be forgiven. To the people who have been living in shame and afraid to tell their stories, especially in church or around other Christians in fear of judgment.
And yes, I also wrote the letter to people who are currently struggling with sin.
I believe that the more a person knows and loves Jesus the more they will naturally want to be like him, live like him and love like him.
But do you know what some people need in order to get to that FIRST step of knowing and loving Jesus?
They need a community, they need guidance and support. They could probably really benefit from some people opening their arms up wide and saying, “come on in, as you are.” We need to get them in the doors first, before the rest can happen.
You know what won’t bring people to Christ? Saying “until you are stop sinning, you don’t really love God”. People need to know God before they have any motivation to change for Him.
Once people learn about Him and really get to know Him, HE will change their heart. Not us. Us humans are not in the heart-changing business. That’s never been our job, our job is to simply love. And we especially won’t be a source of hope for others by telling them they’re still missing the mark.
So to those of you, women and men, who reached out saying how bad you needed to hear this, I hope you know that it’s 100% true that Jesus loves the heck out of you. I might be wrong about a lot, but I’m not wrong about that.
To the woman who said “maybe I will try to find a church that would accept me” or the person who said “I’ve stopped going to church but this makes me believe there is a community of believers out there for me” or even the person who said “I’m not a Christian but this made me more interested”, you are wanted. The letter was for you.
To the woman who commented “I’ve done too much” and the people who loving responded telling her she could never do too much to be out of Jesus’s reach, this is what it’s all about. The letter was for you.
The overarching message, that may have been missed or misconstrued by some, was that you can go to Jesus right now as you are. You will never be “good enough” on your own to deserve Him, and that’s the whole point of grace.
So again, I stand firm in my belief that you are never out of God’s reach and He always has room for you. Think of Paul, a man who literally killed Christians, and then went on to change the course of Christianity.
No matter what anyone else says, you are included in His plan. Our focus should not be on what man thinks of us, but on what Jesus does.
And He thinks so, SO highly of you. His child.