29 Dec Approval Cure
Each of us have our own challenges when it comes to renewing our mind around our identity in Christ. I’m so convinced about the importance of our identity that I have written a 40 day devotional on it. But head knowledge is one matter. Revelation and healing is another.
Over this year, the Holy Spirit had started to show me that in some part of my heart I craved approval from other people. In particular, approval from people in positions of spiritual leadership. As the Holy Spirit showed me what an automatic behaviour this was for me, I repented and asked for healing.
But I just didn’t get it! I understood that I was loved. I understood that I belonged and that I was a child of God. But I just didn’t understand how God could approve of me by grace. Doesn’t the very word ‘approve’ mean that I had to do something to be considered by God? For him to decide whether or not the things I did were good enough – and by extension, me? How did I separate my actions from my identity? And how, oh how, did he approve of me apart from my actions?
All these confusing questions plagued me as I prayed daily to understand his approval. I wanted to know in my heart, by faith, that I was approved because of Christ and not my works.
One day, a friend invited me to a week-long lecture series about the Father Heart of God, run by Rich and Lyn Hodges. They are a missionary couple who work for Youth With a Mission (YWAM). I went with a very specific void in my heart and prayed: Father, if you are willing, please teach me what approval in Christ is!
By his astonishing grace, he answered my prayer.
I learnt so much over that week that changed how I think about myself, our Christian walk, and ministry but I was most grateful to learn about his approval in such an amazing way.
Rich was teaching from 1 Peter 1:23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. (NIV)
Just like apple seeds produce apple trees, and orange seeds orange trees and not apple, we ourselves will grow up to become like God because it’s his seed that we’re born out of. We won’t grow up to become like anything else – we will walk like him and talk like him because we have his DNA in our heart.
As these words washed over me, the Holy Spirit whispered into my heart clearly: “Kate, you are just like your dad!”
In that moment, a healing and purifying realisation began to form: When God looks at me, he sees himself in me. He says ‘yes!’ and gives his stamp of approval on my life because he sees that I am like him. Not because of anything I have done, but because of his seed in my heart.
At the end of the week, we all wrote what we had learnt about ourselves on a stone. I wrote, ‘JUST LIKE MY DAD’ and put this stone in my dressing room. Every day now, when I get dressed, I put this very important thought into my mind. I am not approved because my pastor thinks I’m doing well spiritually. I’m not approved because I think I’ve done some good things for God. I’m not approved because he’s happy with my list of good deeds. He approves of me because I am his chosen daughter. And that settles it!
Kate is the current owner and editor of Cup of Faith. She is a blogger who loves Jesus, loves to read, and currently lives in Johannesburg with her husband.
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