Approval
I left Syracuse yesterday at 0600 and flew to Orlando, Fla. I drove from the Orlando airport to Vero Beach, picked up Mom, returned to Orlando, and with Mom flew back to Syracuse. We got back to the camp at 10:30 PM. Mom did well for a 90+ year-old woman. We are going to celebrate her birthday tomorrow with all of her children, grandchildren, and great grand-children.
I don’t know why, but on the flight down God began to talk to me about our need for man’s approval, how that need corrupts our lives, and how it is the source of ‘the fear of man’. In the extreme case, we tailor all of our thoughts and actions to please other people. Then, instead of manifesting the image of God into the world, we manifest the image of the people we are continually trying to please. Instead of becoming like Jesus, we become what they want us to be in order to get their approval. In really extreme cases, we can be one person for someone and a completely different person for someone else in order to be approved by both. This is the root, or at least one of the roots, of idolatry. It is also the cause of an offend-able heart. This lack of approval or even disapproval is one of the sources or anger, bitterness, and un-forgiveness in our lives.
As I thought more deeply about this very human and all to prevalent condition, God began to show me His compassion for us. If we truly believed that we are His adopted sons and daughters we would understand approval in an entirely new way. Adoption? Brought into the family? Now, that is approval. And we have that approval independently of how we see ourselves, we can’t earn it, and we can never lose it. That is Good News.
More on this subject later, but I wanted to share this with whoever reads the blog. You are approved!! Really approved, right now. Loved, valued, accepted, approved. God has put his stamp on you, and that stamp reads AWESOME and AMAZING. Assuming, of course, that you believe in Jesus by faith, have accepted the gift of repentance, and are doing your best to live in the Kingdom of God, and not the Kingdom of self.