Freedom from the tyranny of man’s opinion to become who we were always made to be.
I’ve given up caring who respects me and who doesn’t (save Erika and the kids). On a good day, I just keep my head down doing what I’m here to do. Keep it simple. Keep my mind set on what’s real, what’s true, on the simplicity of what it is I’m here to do.
Keep my mind set on what’s true. That leads to peace. Keep my focus on what matters and ignore the fleeting and inconsequential things that have no bearing on reality, things that have a way of sorting themselves out or things that are outside of my control.
If they are out of my control, they are someone else’s responsibility. I have my hands more than full with what actually is my responsibility. Honor God and do what He’s called me to do, love and serve Erika and the kids, take care of the house, turn ideas into resources that serve people well and somehow turn all of that into revenue that also empowers me to do all the above…..etc. Those things are simple and yet all consuming if they are to be done well.
When I concern myself with what’s none of my business, that’s not my responsibility, it dilutes my capacity to execute on those things that are my responsibility. I only have so much capacity to care about things. It’s up to me to decide how I’m to expend my capacity.
People’s opinions are fickle, hollow prizes that bind us to the tyrannical vacuum of needing to be liked.
Being liked isn’t my responsibility. What people like can be subject to change. There are so many factors that can make the preference of the human heart a moving target.
There are some general preferences that every human has, being fed, clothed and having adequate shelter. Every human heart longs to be loved whether they admit it or not but even that longing can only truly be satisfied by having faith that God loves me and that, in turn, I am worthy of love and choose to love myself. That creates an overflow from which we are able to effectively love those that are in our lives.
Simply put, the need to be loved is too deep to be met by mere humans. That’s not to say that we don’t need human relationships, far from it but those relationships become toxic when we draw too hard on them for what ultimately only God can give us.
We will only allow ourselves to be loved to the degree that we believe we are worthy of love.
We will self sabotage any time the goodness in our lives crosses the threshold of our own limits of what we feel we are worthy of and we won’t love other people too far beyond our own self worth.
So, fighting for the acceptance, respect or approval of other people that are already dealing with their own worthiness issues when we have work to do in our own hearts just creates an all consuming pursuit where never attain to because what we are truly seeking can only come through acceptance from God and ourselves.
The real acceptance that we need to be assured of is that we are loved and accepted at the deepest level by The One who made us in His own image and said “It is good”. The acceptance of The One, the only one who truly and fully knows us.
To experience that acceptance from God and then to say “amen” with self-acceptance is the only way to achieve the peace that set this pursuit in motion in the first place.
It’s the only place that it’s actually realized. It’s the fullest way the question of acceptance and worthiness is actually answered.
The clearest demonstration of God’s opinion of us, in the middle of our process, in the face of a thousand times we’ve blundered opportunities and missed the mark is the cross of Jesus Christ. It demonstrates our value to our Creator. The cross was the transaction that opened the pathway for us to come home to the acceptance of The Father’s house. It’s where God rewired the cosmos and fixed every fracture that our orphan-spirited brokenness created when we beloved the lie that we were less than God’s Self-Portrait.
Simply put, faith in Jesus is the only way to set the heart at rest from the pursuit of acceptance. The Father’s gaze is the only place the pursuit of acceptance is ever satisfied.
The security of The Father’s house is the only place the fear of rejection is put to rest.
You can do everything under the sun to make people like you and put all the thought and effort into controlling what people think of you. You can wear your little orphan heart out and still not win everyone over.
It’s not until your heart is at rest in The Father’s acceptance that you can be free and faith in Jesus is the way there.
The cross displays what He thinks of you and He actually does know you, the real you. The you behind the mask. The you behind the image you construct to be liked. God actually likes the person you’re trying to hide from the world.
The real you.
Jesus loves the you that you buried under a lifetime of self-hatred.
You only fight to be liked when you believe that you are not. That’s what faith in Jesus is about. A big part of it is coming into agreement with His estimation of your value in the purest version of who you truly are.
Do you believe that you were worthy of the price that Jesus paid for your liberation? Do you believe that you are worthy of that? That’s where rubber really hits the road of what it means to believe in Jesus.
God is smarter than you. He is wiser than you. He knows infinitely more than you…….
And He paid the price and said you are worthy.
Faith in Jesus means breaking agreement with low self-worth and every other worldly assessment of your value and coming into agreement with Christ’s assessment of your value.
That’s real repentance.
That’s the repentance that will actually change you and break those cycles of brokenness that have beset you your whole life.
It’s believing the gospel and allowing God to be as good to you as He wants to be and then refusing to self-sabotage when He does.
Not only does God want to be really good to you. He wants to be really good through you.
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
- Ephesians 2:10
The Greek word for “workmanship” is poema, which is where we get the English word “poetry”.
We are the poetry of God. We aren’t made as something to be accepted or rejected by fickle-hearted people, but we are an act of radical self-expression of God Himself. We are God’s communication incarnate. He is speaking in the way He made us and His word is light that shines to illuminate every darkness when our hands find the work that He made for us before the foundation of the world.
This work is the way we “let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify you Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16) We were made to live, move and breathe in a way that expresses the goodness of God in all of life.
The way we are made, the things we like doing, the way He made our brain to think, the way we are drawn to one thing over another, literally the way that we are is all part of our Divine Design.
Jesus calls us “The Light of The World.” This is who we are.
He told us to shine our lights before people. These works we are drawn to are the way we surrender to our nature. The works we are made to do are the very solutions to darkness and distinction in the world. To illuminate the eyes of humanity to reconcile them back to God.
When God said, “Let there be Light..” that was the Genesis of who you are as part of God’s creation, His communication. He had your work prepared for you beforehand. He knew what was in His heart before the overflow.
“Out of the abundance of the heart, His mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45b)
We are here because God’s heart has been overflowing from eternity past.
Getting bogged down in the inferior goal of being accepted by fickle hearted people who are in need of love, light and in their own battle with self-sabotage and fear of rejection creates a feedback loop that hamstrings humanity and impedes their created function. They then devolve into a wasted life on a hamster wheel.
Simply put, the reach for acceptance from people is a distraction and based in the illusion of rejection.
The truth is, we have always been accepted by God and The Cross is the transaction that proves it.
Coming into agreement with Jesus frees us up to lift our eyes from all neediness and access the abundance of our created purpose. Our target moves from needing something from people, to serving them.
When we no longer need anything from people, it is then we are free to selflessly serve them.
So let’s trust in Jesus and the finished work of The Cross and get our hands on the work we were always made to be doing.
Shalom Shalom.
Matt
P.S.
If you’ve been blessed by this, pray about sowing a financial seed to help us stay freed up to keep it coming by tapping on the giving link up above. Thank you all who have been partnering with us to get this message out.