So, how high is your approval rating? All of our politicians have approval ratings. Their surrogates spend their days trying to raise those ratings. They are not alone. Our need for approval affects us in unhealthy ways. Whose approval do we seek? Some seek the approval of others. Still others approve themselves like the politicians who say at the end of commercials, “And I approved this message.”
God approved Paul’s message because he had entrusted it to him. In the first century, Paul identified the difficulties of codependency by explaining to the Thessalonians, “We are not trying to please people but God.” This should have been clear to the Thessalonians who watched some of their citizens run Paul and his friends out of town. Because he did not live for their approval, Paul was able to tell these first century Christians the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
In a way, what other people think of us is none of our business. Swedish Diplomat and UN Secretary General Dag Hammerskjold wrote, “Around a person who has been pushed into the limelight a legend begins to grow as it does around a dead man. But a dead man is in no danger of yielding to the temptation to nourish his legend, or accept its picture as reality. I pity the man who falls in love with his image as it is drawn by public opinion during the honeymoon of publicity.” Like Paul, we live our lives for an audience of One. God’s opinion is the one that really matters. He approves us not on the basis of our works but on the finished work of Christ on the cross.
