Meet The New YouSample

Already Approved

You are approved.

Does that sound like the magic answer?

Depending upon what’s going on in your life, you might literally be waiting on approval. Maybe for buying a house or getting a car loan. Maybe in being accepted into a college honors program or securing an internship. Maybe in getting clearance to volunteer in your kid’s school or working in a youth mentoring program.

Waiting on approval is something most of us will experience at some time or another, however waiting to be approved by God is something we never have to do. He doesn’t hold in His hand a gargantuan stamp waiting to imprint “Approved” on our foreheads after we’ve preformed perfectly. He doesn’t wield over as us an imaginary contract that is signed, sealed, and ready to deliver us into heaven, pending our ability to fulfill the terms.

God’s ways are so very different than ours.

It’s not about a contract. It’s about a relationship. And when that relationship is bent in a holy, right, pure direction, His approval is something we’ll come to realize . . . over time . . . is all that we need.

His approval isn’t something we can secure for ourselves. On the contrary, it comes through someone else.

Jesus.

When Jesus died on the cross for our sins, He satisfied the debt that once declared us disapproved. When God looks upon us through Jesus Christ, all He sees is already approved. What does it look like to live from that point of certainty today?

Trap and Transform

1. Whose approval are you living for?

2. How would your life change if you settled into the truth that God approves of you through Jesus?

3. What does it look like to give up striving for the approval of man?