For most of my life, I’ve worked for acceptance. It may have been from a particular person or a group of people. Even though I know that I haven’t had to, I’ve even tried to work for the acceptance of God. Through Pastor Naeem’s message at Seacoast yesterday, I was reminded that complete acceptance has already been achieved on my behalf. My job now is simply to be thankful.

In Matthew 3:17, the Father spoke to Jesus before his ministry had even begun. He said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” When we surrender our lives to Christ, we receive the same standing with God that Jesus had. This isn’t because of our own merits or holiness, this is simply the gift that Jesus paid for with his life.

This means that for those of us who follow Jesus, this is how God feels about you. You’re the apple of his eye. No matter what you’re going through right now. No matter what sin you may be struggling with. This is what God thinks of you. He sees you in the same way that he saw his perfect Son on that day.

I don’t know about you, but this seems crazy to me. I feel consistently like I don’t measure up. I feel like I need to be on my best behavior to get that type of acceptance. The point however, is that there is no way we ever could have earned it. Because of that, Jesus achieved on our behalf what we could never achieve on our own.

You are precious and honored in God’s sight. He is as pleased with you now as he’ll ever be. How do you respond to that? How does that make you feel? To me, it seems too good to be true. But then…isn’t that why they call it the gospel or good news?