“Don’t go changing … I love you just the way you are.” So goes the popular love song by Billy Joel. It is a picture of unconditional love. It is the highest form of love to keep on loving someone whatever his or her characteristics or circumstances may be. True love loves no matter what.
But this does not mean there are no standards worth pursuing that are applicable to self and to others. Standards provide the stability that makes life truly worth living. And the genuinely worthwhile standards transcend the superficial concerns of humanity and reach deep into the character of each person. It is to everyone’s benefit to move closer to meeting these standards. So, true love will desire to see the improvement and transformation of the one who is loved to reach these standards.
Of course, these standards can never be based on our own personal preferences. For our preferences will always be limited by our human imperfections. We can never be the standard of perfection. There is only one who qualifies: God himself. God alone is perfection.
Since we are imperfect creatures, God calls us to his perfection. But one thing must be clear: “It is not the case that God simply ‘accepts us as we are.’ He invites us as we are; but responding to that invitation always involves the complete transformation which is acted out in repentance, forgiveness, baptism, and receiving the spirit” (N.T. Wright). In other words, God does love us as we are. But it is the kind of love that knows that remaining where we are is not to our best benefit. He loves us enough to invite us to something beyond where we are, much better than we can ever have on our own. He calls us to himself.
This never means that I have to “change myself” before I may approach God. On the contrary, Scripture is clear—even emphatic—that we can never do that on our own. “No one does good, not a single one … For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard” (Romans 3:12, 23 NLT). This is precisely why we need to approach God. We can’t change ourselves. We must let him do his loving work to share his life with us and transform us into his image, revealed in none other than Jesus the Christ (Romans 6.23; 8.28-29). The invitation is to come as we are. But when we respond to God and come to him, we can never remain as we are.
God loves us just the way we are … but his love is so pure that he does not want us to remain the way we are when he knows that the way we are is not the best situation for us. He calls us to himself so that, in him, we can discover the best way we can be.
—Keith Y. Jainga