Accepted and Loved

When I’m hanging out with my grandkids, they always want me to watch them do whatever it is they’re doing. They might be riding a skateboard or doing a cartwheel or some other thing, and they say, “Papa, watch me!” So I’ll watch them, and afterward, I’ll give my approval.

“You did that beautifully! That was great!”

They want to me to affirm them. They want to know that I love and appreciate them. But really, are we any different in our relationship with God? In a sense, we all say, “Lord, watch me!”

When Moses asked God for direction, God gave him this promise: “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (NKJV). In the original Hebrew, the language is vivid. We could translate it this way: “My face will go with you.”

God was saying, “Don’t worry, Moses. I’ll go with you. You have My full attention.”

Aren’t you glad, by the way, that God doesn’t have a cell phone? We all know what it’s like to have a conversation with someone who’s busy scrolling through things on their phone. God isn’t that way with us, thankfully. We have His full attention.

He’s watching us, but He’s watching with great love and affection. Psalm 84:11 tells us, “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly” (NKJV).

God is for us, and God approves of us.

Now, if we’re living apart from Him in sin, that isn’t true. But if we have asked Him to forgive us of our sin, then the Bible says that “He made us accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6 NKJV).

God accepts us and loves us. We don’t have to earn that. It already has been done for us, bought by Jesus Christ on the cross.