Have you ever felt like you’re not good enough?
Not good enough to do your job?
Not good enough for your friends?
Not good enough for your partner?
Not good enough for your church?
Not a good enough Christian?
Not good enough for God?
Well I’m here to tell you that’s not how God sees you.
There are those Christians, fond of telling us we don’t measure up. I distinctly remember Mark Driscoll quoting Isaiah 64:6 “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” to tell his congregation and those who tuned into his podcasts, that we were like used tampons in the sight of God.
What a deeply unpleasant man.
Others may not be so graphic and vulgar, but will happily tell you that Romans 2:23 says that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” and that Habbakuk tells us that God’s eyes are too holy to look upon us.
The message is clear. You disgust God. You are not good enough for God.
This is untrue.
It’s based on misinterpretations and misquotes, for example, the verse in Habbakuk in full reads:
“Your eyes are too pure to behold evil, and you cannot look on wrongdoing, why do you look on the treacherous and are silent when the wicked swallow those more righteous than they?” (Habakkuk 1:13)
Habbakuk isn’t talking about the human condition, he’s complaining at God because he feels God doesn’t do enough to stop evil. The bible is full of stories of people complaining to God. How wonderful that we have a God to whom we can take these complaints, who does not rebuke us in our anger, but listens to us.
Habakkuk is complaining that God is too holy to look upon humanity, but that God still does. God looks upon us. Isaiah likewise is complaining about religious hypocrisy.
Yes, we do all “fall short” we are flawed human beings, we have, as Francis Spufford once described it “a human propensity to fuck things up”
And still God looks upon us.
God gazes on us with utter love and devotion, the way a mother gazes at her newborn baby, in fact, the bible tells us that God delights over us in song (Zephaniah 3:17) that we are God’s masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10) God’s thoughts towards us are always good (Ephesians 1:11-12) God planned us and created us exactly how we are (Psalm 139:17-18)
When God looks upon you, God doesn’t even see those flaws, that propensity to fuck up, that simply isn’t how God thinks of you. The bible tells us that God sees us as righteous (Romans 5:1) and that our sins have been removed from us, as far as the East is from the West (psalm 103:12)
You don’t have to believe a particular thing or do a particular thing to be loved by God.
These men who like to make us feel small, will argue that those things only apply to “the saved” (and of course they will consider themselves the judge and jury of who is saved) we only get to experience this love, and grace if we believe certain things, pray certain prayers, live certain lives. The bible says otherwise. The bible tells us that God has always loved us: “‘I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you with loving devotion” (Jeremiah 31:3) and that even when we are steeped in sin, at our most flawed and fucked up, God still loves us (Romans 5:8)
You’re loved, right now, exactly as you are, whoever you are, wherever you are and however you are.
“God loves you as you are, but enough to not leave you like that!” Replies the man telling me I’m not good enough, as though God requires me to be something else, someone else, someone I’m not, someone I wasn’t created to be. “Come as you are, but don’t stay as you are” he writes on his church noticeboard. How inviting!
But here’s the truth. God doesn’t require anything of you in order to love you, or in order to save you (if indeed you even need to be saved, if indeed there is anything to save you from, but that’s another blog post!)
God asks nothing of you. You are not required to change. You can come to God, meet with God, stay exactly as you are and you will still be as loved as ever you could be. Come as you are and stay as you are if that’s what you want to do. It’s totally fine, you won’t be loved any less.
But aren’t we called to repentance?
Yes, and in my experience, you’ll hang out with God and you’ll want to grow, you won’t want to stay as you are. Not because there’s anything wrong with who you are, but because God lovingly nurtures us, as a mother eagle nurtures her chicks so that she can watch them spread their wings and soar. And if you don’t spread your wings and soar? Well that’s okay, because the bible tells you that God longs to protect you under the shadow of her wing. (Matthew 23:37) There’s no requirement for you to change to be loved, or saved. Why? Because if there were then salvation wouldn’t be through Christ alone, it would be through our efforts, but our efforts can’t save us, and they can’t make us any more lovable. Because we are already saved by Jesus, and already loved outrageously,
So, are you flawed? Yes, of course you are, you’re human! Are you good enough? Also yes, you are a wonderful daughter of the King of Kings, created in God’s image to reflect God’s glory, so straighten your crown and never let any frightened fragile man tell you that you’re not enough.
