Seeking approval

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"For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ".  Galatians 1:10.  NKJV

Some people are born with super-thick skin and have the innate ability to resist seeking the approval of others. Yet there are those of us who’ve struggled with people-pleasing most of our lives. We sometimes forget the most important stamp of approval comes from God.  

Seeking people's approval about what we do can be a form of insecurity. We need to be wanted; to be recognised and be accepted. Therefore, many of us do things just for this sake. If we preach a sermon, the temptation can be to await appreciation from people afterwards. If we don't get it, it can hurt our pride. We may even be tempted to tone the sermon down so that it doesn't offend anyone. 

In certain circles, we may hide the fact that we are a Christian so that the people we meet don't think that we're weird. This can happen very much in families where the rest of household are unbelievers. We can therefore be tempted to not speak about our faith. This can also follow us to school or our place of work. People may find out that we're a believer and ridicule us for it. That can be unpleasant so we avoid letting them find out.

Some of us may spend our life trying to please a supervisor at work. We may go in earlier than we should and stay way behind time after work. To a degree doing things over our work schedule is very commendable but not, if we're trying to be a people-pleaser instead of a God-pleaser. We have it back to front. God wants the first place in our lives not people.

Many people are shy and don't put themselves forward for things. They hide behind others and stand in the corner on their own while others are in conversation. Does that sound familiar? I can be a little like that. Some of us need to be the centre of attention and will make sure that we're heard above anyone else. We need the attention. 

God understands all of this and wants to work with us to help us be more secure in all we do. He doesn't want us striving to get noticed; doing things that will make us look good to other people. He wants our attention and He wants us to be honest with Him; to be honest with ourselves. I believe that if God were to write you and I a song, the chorus would go something like this:

'You're accepted, yes you're accepted, you're accepted by the one that matters most.'

Just say these simple words for a moment. Let them settle all over you and into your heart and mind; in fact, your very soul. You are accepted by the one that matters most. Say it out loud to yourself. Write it down somewhere that you'll see it everyday. Stick it up in the kitchen. You don't need anyone else's approval, you have His. You don't need to be insecure any longer, He will build you up as you spend more time with Him. And you don't need to hide your faith away, embarrassed about what others will think about you. Who cares what they think, anyway? It's what God thinks and says about you that matters. 
And He says, you're accepted by the one that matters most.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com