Hearing this come out of my Young Life leader's mouth changed my life. I will never forget it, though I'm pretty sure he doesn't remember it at all.
It was the first time I realized that you could be totally in love with Jesus and be yourself too.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that loving Jesus and growing in that love won't change your life in a way that has moral implications. I'm saying that up until that point I thought I had to try to be someone different than I was on the inside... I basically thought I had to just try to be a different "better" person, that I had to fake it till it became reality.
When I heard this guy use the "sh" word so flippantly, like nothing happened, I felt like Jesus was inviting me into a new life of love and acceptance. Like he was saying loving him was enough, he could take care of the rest.
It was freeing, enough that I remember it 16 years later.
Jesus invites us to be ourselves. He invites us into his love for us as we are, not as we should be, or as we've been told we should be, or as we think we should be. He loves us totally and completely now, as we are.
It would do us good to live in that reality more, it's through living in that love, and knowing that love, that we will actually begin to become more like him.
So thank you Joe Bahr, Jesus spoke through you that day and I have not forgotten it.
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