Approval is a packed word.  To be approved is to be accepted, pleased with, and enjoyed all at the same time.  We all seek approval from someone.  If you don’t want to be accepted and pleased with, you need to check your pulse to see if you are living or perhaps you’re just in denial.  Weather it’s your boss, your spouse, your parents, your enemies, or whoever -we all desire to find ourselves approved in the sight of someone.

As Christians, it is only natural to want God’s approval.  After all, “to live is Christ,” and when this life is said and done all we will have is Christ.  I don’t know about you, but more often that not I look for God’s approval in my circumstances.  Inwardly I ask the question, does God approve me because I read, prayed, and loved enough today?  If you don’t think ask a form of this same question, let me ask you something.

Do you look for small or big wins in life that will confirm God’s approval? For instance, Thank you God for the promotion, I know you love me!  Thank you God our nice home, I know you love me!  Thank you God for McDonalds, this BigMac proves that you care for me (until I get hospitalized for too many BigMacs).  

Now I am not saying that it’s wrong to thank God for the big and small blessings he freely gives us.  BUT is God for us because we get a good job, a financial blessing, or healing from a sickness?  If this is our mentality, what happens when we don’t get the promotion we prayed for?  What if we lose our job?  What’s next if our spouse doesn’t love us the way we were hoping?  Where is God’s approval at when we don’t see it in our current conditions?

Here’s the good news, God’s approval of us has nothing to do with us.  Jesus is the stamp of God’s approval for us.  Because of Christ’s death and resurrection on our behalf, we are Perfectly, Permanently, and Perpetually approved by God.  There’s nothing good or bad we can do to gain or lose our Holy God’s approval.

So don’t live for God’s approval.  Jesus already won God’s permanent approval for you.  Instead live, love, and do everything in life out of the joy that comes with that package of God’s permanent approval of you.