I know...it's been awhile. Don't judge me.
I wrote this in the journal my sister bought me for my birthday last year. When she gave it to me she told me to write something amazing in it and I had been saving it for the infinite travels I was going to take when I got the chance. But then something hit me...so here it is.
Who am I? This question is one that I have always been sure I knew the answer to. Daughter, sister, girlfriend, best friend, actress, crafty, Christian. But the thing is, I only have one true identity. I am a daughter of God. I am loved, wholly, unconditionally, and fully by Jesus Christ, and nothing else matters.
Until this point in my life I have always viewed church and Christianity to be something that all good people do and the biggest sin they may commit would be to lie about their weight or how clean their homes are. I have always thought that in order to be an upstanding member of the Christian society you must read your Bible for x amount of time, pray for x minutes a day, and go to church x many times a week. But being in a relationship with Jesus Christ has nothing to do with what I do or do not do. Jesus loves me. And theres is no one in the world that he loves and wants more than me. But in being a Christian since I was 7 years old, I have always thought that I wasn't allowed to make any major mistakes. That means, no sex, no alcohol, no pornography, no cutting, no swearing, no lust, no killing, no stealing, and no major lies. But gossiping with my friends? oh that's fine. Making an idol of my possessions? thats ok too as long as I still go to church. Everything will be ok as long as I go to church and pray. I'll really sell out to God after I start reading my Bible more and being perfect again.
But heres the thing...God never expected us to be perfect. He knew that Adam and Eve were going to take of the fruit. He knew the world was going to be a sinful place and he knew of every single time you would sin and fall and stumble and be imperfect. If we were all meant to be perfect little Christians all the time..there would be absolutely no reason for the 1 and only perfect being who ever walked this earth to die on the cross for us and wipe away our sins.
Perfection was never a part of our formula. And yet...GOD STILL LOVES US, wholly, unconditionally, and fully. In our eyes we see murder and adultery and drinking and cursing and self loathing to be the worst offenses against God. But God sees all sin the same. He hates ALL of it. However, if you are His child, if you are a Christian, He sees it as non-existant. In the moment immediately after the sin when guilt is setting in and you start to feel like God could never love or want you, He is reaching out to you and saying "I LOVE YOU, and I took care of that and all of your other sins on that tree 2,000 years ago. It's gone. It's done. It's wiped clean. IT IS FINISHED."
God loves each and every one of us with a capacity that we cannot even imagine. You can begin with the fact that he sent his perfect son to die a horrible painful death to cleanse our filthy lives. But that barely scratches the surface. God loved Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden, and Joseph Stalin,just as much as he loved Paul, David, and John. You and me and every, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, every prostitute, every pastor, every deacon and every child, He loves us all the same. So don't think that you deserve more of God's love just because you read your Bible x amount of time, pray x number of minutes, or go to church x days a week.
Ephesians 2:8-9
"For it is by grace you have been saved through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God,- not by works, so that no one can boast."
So there it is....and most of the inspiration for this came from this video. I encourage you to watch it if you haven't already and then go watch some more of his videos.
