“To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” -Ephesians 1:6–7
When people look to buy a home, they will often submit a purchase price to the seller. When students apply for colleges and universities, they wait for an acceptance letter in the mail. The waiting time can often stressful and can be filled with questions about whether what they’ve submitted is sufficient, and whether their offer or application will be accepted.
Some children grow up in homes where parental acceptance is based on their performance either academically, athletically, musically, or their ability to maintain a perfect body weight, etc. After becoming believers the question sometimes plagues us. “Is God pleased with me?” “Am I truly accepted by God?” These questions can be a cause for deep concern for us, and can linger for a long time (sometimes for years) in our Christian lives. The problem is: We measure ourselves and hold ourselves to a performance based lifestyle, hoping that we do enough day by day for God to be be pleased with us.
We may sometimes feel that God is actually “displeased” with us because of our lack of consistent Christian disciplines, like – not reading the Bible enough, not praying enough, not tithing, and not sharing our faith with others, etc. It’s with this measuring stick that we may reason for most of the time, God is simply “not pleased with us.” While all the disciplines of the Christian life work for our good, and our spiritual growth, these should be our delight in enjoying a close relationship with God. But when we use our performance as a standard, we try to compensate our lack of feeling accepted and pleasing to God, by trying to read more Bible, by praying longer and harder, etc. All of this is personally frustrating, and hinders the true grace of God working in our lives. Self performance can derail us from experiencing what Jesus promised concerning the Christian life being an “abundant life.” (John 10:10). More miserably, we feel distraught when we sin, and that we are setting ourselves up for “God’s anger, displeasure,” and even his wrath and judgement.
Please settle this truth in your heart, based solely on the testimony of the Word of God … As a believer in Christ, “You ARE accepted, and God truly delights in you as his son or daughter.”
The Word of God emphatically declares that we as believers in Christ, “are accepted in the beloved.” (Eph 1:6). Christ is the beloved of the Father, and when we are “in Christ,” we are accepted by God. This isn’t because of our performance and our attempts to be right before God in our strength, but it is because of Christ’s “performance.” On the cross, Christ purchased our acceptance by God, and it’s in our union with Jesus by faith, that God completely accepts us. Fact is … We will never be able to work hard enough, or cleanse and reform ourselves so that we can find an illusive confidence that, “God is pleased with me.” No, on the contrary, God the Father is pleased with you because He is pleased with Jesus. Christ’s work was complete to earn us the acceptance and favor of God.
Photo by Charles Curtis
