The Opinion That Matters

I have a confession, I crave the approval of man. I have been known to elevate it above that of the approval of God. As I write these words, I am aware of my heart and pray that what I do I do for the glory of God and not my own glory. My life needs to be for His glory alone and when it is, I will be most satisfied in Him and when I am, He will be most glorified. To fight these sinful cravings I have to constantly remind myself of the following:

1. What people think of me does not matter. This comes with a caveat. God often uses the people in our lives to instruct, correct, and grow us into His likeness. Not caring what people think does not mean that I am to live in wanton disregard to what anyone tells me but to rather apply their observations and care to the Word and test the truth. If someone thinks I am a fool for following Christ I do not care. If someone tells me I am sinning, I should respond “Your opinion of me does not matter”. At least not at a first...

2. Only God's opinion matters. When God looks at the believer He sees the righteousness of Christ and one of his beloved Children. Even a believer who sins is still legally right before God as I explored in the last post. God will discipline the one that He loves, like a father loving His children but his opinion of us remains the same. He loves us enough to have sent His only Son to live the perfect life and die the death we should have, to bring us to Him.

3. The WORST thing anyone can know about you is already known. Anyone claiming to be a Christian is claiming that their sins were great enough and bad enough that it required the sacrifice of God's son to pay our debts. We are saying that we were so in need of a savior that God sent his Son. Anything else, any sins, any lies that anyone can say pales in comparison to the weight of that statement.

We needn't worry about what anyone may say to us or about us because we know the gospel, it frees us from craving the approval of man and pushes us into the loving arms of God, who's approval we could never have won but we have received anyway through the death of His Son.