The other day I was talking with a teenage girl in my life. I noticed a pattern in our conversation that was similar to conversations with other girls. These girls all felt guilty…and they shouldn’t.

They love Jesus and they are trying to follow him everyday but they just feel guilty that they are living up to the “standard.” When I began to ask the girl about where she was hearing the standard from…she slowly answered, “from church.”

We began to talk about her guilt and about the call to follow Jesus. How those who have accepted the gift of salvation are right before God and that truth usually leads to life change in our lives…not out of guilt but out of love.

It made me sad to think that we are making students feel guilty. There are so many pressures today as a teenager and following Jesus shouldn’t be another “pressure” that leads a student to feel like a failure who isn’t measuring up.

The Tension

I feel this tension as we teach about God’s radical grace for us and at the same time as we teach about God’s radical plans for us.

He loves us. We are right before him.

He loves you right where you are, he loves you enough to not leave you there.

Sometimes, when we teach about his radical plans that include specific behaviors we set students up for guilt if we haven’t spent enough time teaching on God’s radical grace.

It’s a tension.

And I don’t want to produce a generation of guilty girls but a generation of radical daughters of God. And because the tension exists, I pray for wisdom and for grace.

We’ll you join me in praying for the girls that we minister to that they might not be burdened with guilt but that they would experience a radical grace for their lives!