We all want to be loved, it’s true. Even the most despicable and despised person still wants approval. The friction of this desire often rears its ugly head in the most unusual fashion, causing us to behave in ways that cause people to say, “That’s not even the same person I once knew.”

Feeding the acceptance idol can be the most tiring and fruitless thing that any of us can do. I must state that there is a balance thought between acceptance and not really caring what anyone things to a detriment, but today I really want to focus on that crippling notion that everything that we do has to be approved by a person, a group of people, or everyone in general.

Approval can transform the surest of us all into a crippled, mangled heap that lies in the corner until we are coaxed out by the smallest compliment from the right person at the right time in the right fashion. It most often catches us in the balance of wanting to control and be controlled all in some convoluted state of living on the fumes of others precious nods instead of a desire to see our lives changed by the power of the Gospel.

Where should our approval come from? Whose approval really matters? What does it mean to find our approval in Jesus?

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 offers such a beautiful example of why and how our approval is from Jesus and in Jesus. If you are a believer then you are a new creation! This should stir up within you a hope like no other. All the things you identified with before Christ do not pertain to you anymore. The approval that you were a slave to you had no power over you. Christ died to make you new and you are automatically approved by God because of the finished work of Jesus Christ who was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died a substitutionary death, rose from the grave, ascended to heaven and is waiting in heaven to come back one day and take us home.

There is no cause for you to continue the futile pursuit of seeking man’s approval when God supreme has accepted you because of Jesus. Rest in that today, know that the only approval needed and the only place it can be found is by accepting the person and work of Jesus Christ.