Most parents instinctively know the difference between acceptance and approval. No matter what your son does, he will always be accepted as your son. If he disobeys you, breaks the law, even turns his back on you – he is still your son. This unchanging love is acceptance. But this doesn’t mean you always approve of his choices and actions. If he respects and obeys you, you are pleased and approve of him. If he disrespects and disobeys you, you are displeased and disapprove of him.
This crucial distinction is important in our relationship with our Heavenly Father as well.
Unconditional Acceptance
As Christians, we are forgiven, adopted, loved, and accepted by God as his son or daughter. Nothing we do can ever change our status. We can’t earn more acceptance with good behavior or lose acceptance through bad behavior.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are.” | 1 John 3:1
But while our status doesn’t change, our standing may. While we are always accepted as God’s children through the work of Christ, God may either approve or disapprove of the way we live our lives. While God’s love in Christ doesn’t change, how we live still matters. We can either please him or displease him with how we live.
Living for God’s Approval
We are called to live for God’s approval. Paul tells Timothy to “do your best to present yourself to God as one approved” (2 Tim. 2:15). We find our Father’s approval when we live in a way that reflects his character and will. As obedient children, we are called to live a holy life to reflect our holy Father (1 Pet. 1:15). While our acceptance is unconditional and our status can’t change, God’s approval and our standing can change because of how we live. As God’s children, we can either be in a good standing before God or a poor standing before God. Deacons are told that if they serve well, they will “gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 3:13). Living faithfully in our calling is expected of all Christians, not just church leaders.
God is pleased when we obey him and honor him. This should be the goal of our whole life! Like a soldier we need to stay focused, “since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him” (2 Tim. 2:4). God’s approval – not anyone else’s, not even ourselves – is all that matters.
“’Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’ For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved [or tested], but the one whom the Lord commends” (2 Cor. 10:17-18).
Testing & Reward
The idea of living for God’s approval even though we have his unconditional love and acceptance helps explain what the New Testament teaches about how Christians are tested by God. Through life, God tests us to strengthen us so we meet his approval.
“…just as we have been approved [or tested] by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak, not to please man, but to please God who tests our hearts.” | 1 Thessalonians 2:4
Though our forgiveness and eternal life is secure, there is a type of reward given for those who live a faithful Christian life. There is only one foundation to the Christian life – Christ – but on this foundation, we can either build a house made of stone or straw.
“Let each person take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.” | 1 Corinthians 3:10-15
By the grace of God and Spirit of God, we want to build a life that will last! A life that will survive the fires of testing! And so, grounded in the unconditional love of God…
“We make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” | 2 Corinthians 5:9-10
What is the reward we receive for a faithful, obedient Christian life? When we imitate our Heavenly Father, we receive his abundant life, lavish blessings, and the joy of pleasing him. Grounded firmly in the love of God, we can strive to please him, living with grace empowered effort, so that we may one day hear the words Jesus spoke in his parable of the faithful servant…
“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” | Matthew 25:21
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