This week Christian singer Vicky Beeching came out to national media in Britain – she’s a lesbian. In the interview she gave she told the reporter, “I feel certain God loves me just the way I am.”
The purpose of this post isn’t to argue the rightness or wrongness of the homosexual lifestyle. I’m squarely within the Christian camp that believes active homosexual behavior is contrary to God’s design and plan and, thus, wrong.
Rather, I want to focus on her statement itself. “God loves me just the way I am.”
This seems to be the cry of many people nowadays. While some people do believe it, too many people use this line as an excuse to remain spiritual stagnant.
People say, "God loves me the way that I am" but they really mean to say, "I'm a sinner who won't even think about changing so back off."
— Chris Linzey (@chrislinzey) August 15, 2014
Rather than examine their lives to see where God would desire growth and change, they play the “God loves me just as I am” card to escape any kind of changed behavior.
But we misunderstand God if we cling to that expression. Instead, we should be telling people:
God loves YOU the way you are. God does not love the WAY you are. There is a difference.
— Chris Linzey (@chrislinzey) August 15, 2014
Yes, God DOES love us. Just as we are He loves us. Messed up sinners but He loves us.
He loves US the way we are, but he doesn’t love the WAY we are.
A relationship with the living God ought to mean that we continue to grow and develop spiritually. It ought to mean that the way we are grows more and more dim in the review mirror as we move towards the new way we are as Christians. The Bible cannot be overstated when the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Not remaining like this world but being changed to be more like Jesus.
It’s too easy to make excuses for not making any changes in who we are. God loves me just as I am.
Yes, He does. He died for me just as I am. But He died for me just as I am so that I no longer have to be just as I am.
I can be something new. I can be something different. I can be something better.
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Chris Linzey 
In saying that Jesus loves us the way we are, we are taking repentance out of salvation and without repentance there is no salvation.
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Exactly.
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Reblogged this on Musings In Scripture and commented:
I thought this was worth passing along.
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Becoming a “new creature in Christ” definitely promotes a lifestyle change! We live and progressively strive to be more like Christ…old things should pass away…instead we are seeing more people try to bring the worlds standards into the body of Christ….God loves the sinner, He hates the sin…there is a difference…but it’s easier for many to hold on to the deception rather than change and renew their thinking…so sad….GREAT POST!
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Thx! 🙂
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It just baffles me how people can say such ludicrous statements without any thought to it. If God loves me as I am, then why do we need to be reborn (John 3:3), why would we repent (Acts 8:22), or even bother to worship? Just as I am… Indeed!
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It’s as though regeneration is part of a bygone era and belief system…
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