whose are we?

i had a sweet sweet friend send me some encouragement this morning :)


"look at your life and see how you have filled its emptiness with people. as a result they have a stranglehold on you. see how they control your behavior by their disapproval. they hold the power to ease your loneliness with their company, to send your spirits soaring with their praise, to bring you down to the depths with their criticism and rejection. take a look at yourself spending almost every waking moment of your day placating and pleasing people, whether they are living or dead. you live by their norms, conform to their standards, seek their company, desire their love, dread their ridicule, long for their applause, meekly submit to the guilt they lay upon you; you are terrified to go against the fashion in the way that you dress or speak or act or even think. and observe how even when you control them you depend on them and are enslaved by them. people have become so much a part of your being that you cannot even imagine living a life that is unaffected or uncontrolled by them."

we have to remember that HE has already approved of us and we are accepted by Him because of what He has already done on the cross. His approval is all that we need. how much good is left undone because of our fear of the opinion of others? the strokes and scorn of our peers have become more important than the approval of Jesus.

we are HIS and our approval is in Him alone.