A Compelling Truth: A 30 Day Journey through Galatians with Rob StanmoreSýnishorn

DAY 2

 Can you remember the last time you were hungry?

I vividly remember sitting with my step-grandmother as she recounted her experience of the Great Depression in China. 

She described how for years they wrestled with severe poverty. They couldn’t afford meat, so they would place rocks in their bowls of rice so they could feel the illusion of eating meat without the fulfilment of actually eating meat.

This is hunger on a whole new level.

This can illustrate what our lives look like when we hunger for people’s opinions. 

Like the illusion of fulfilling our hunger, it will genuinely never satisfy us. 

You may think:

What do they think about me?

What if I do the wrong thing, will they still like me?

How will this affect how they see me?

When we try to receive our identity through people’s approval it is a snare, like we read in Proverbs 29:25, and oftentimes it causes us to hold back in fear rather than step forward with a God-confidence found in Jesus.

When Paul writes this challenging question, he's really asking, "Are you living for God’s approval, or man’s approval?"

The grace of accepting Jesus is that we are approved by God, through Jesus. 

There is nothing more we can do to receive ‘extra approval’ or ‘more approval’ from God. 

I want to encourage you today to live your day from approval, not out of approval.

You don’t need to prove yourself to man when you’re approved by God.

Questions

(1) What is an area in which you’ve felt you’ve tried to prove yourself to others?

(2) How can you live from approval, not for approval, in this area of your life?