You are totally accepted by and acceptable to God…

…right now…right as you are…no strings attached. You are…you are.

How does this TRUTH sit with you?

Does it seem presumptuous? Impossible?

Since we have now been justified by his blood,
how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him!
For if, when we were God’s enemies,
we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son,
how much more, having been reconciled,
shall we be saved through his life!
Not only is this so,
but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
through whom we have now received reconciliation.
Romans 5: 9-11

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation;
the old has gone, the new has come!
All this is from God,
who reconciled us to himself through Christ
and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:
that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,
not counting men’s sins against them.
And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
2 Corinthians 5:17-19

Think about this for a minute…

If we allowed this to affect us, if we believed it as if it were true–and it IS…then, when we face defeat, failure–our own or someone else’s crashing into us–when we can’t believe we have messed up again…think of this…we can couple the pain of our feelings with this mighty truth:

I am totally accepted by and acceptable to the God of the universe!

I don’t know about you, but this seems like a strikingly practical way of being transformed by the renewing of my mind! Rather than letting my sadness, discouragement, or even anger rob me of what God intends in this moment, I can feast on the fact: God has declared that I am of incredible value and worth! No matter what anyone else thinks of me! No matter how anyone else treats me! Why would I need to eat my way through anything ever again? I mean, I am SO above the abuse I heap on my body–and that is just for starters. If I feel down and feel like I want to numb myself to my pain, why not bask for a while in the truth instead? The truth that:

I am totally accepted by and acceptable to the God of the universe!

Doing this won’t just numb me to the reality, but it will over-ride the pain in the reality! It is a BIGGER, GREATER, more ASTOUNDING reality!!!

Maybe you can tell that I am really excited about this. And it does connect with Get Thin Stay Thin chapter 5! How cool is that! 🙂

[The] undeniable, unavoidable longing for a sense of value is a sanctified hunger placed in us by God’s design, but we will never experience inner peace until we face the truth that nothing of this world–our appearance, our performance, others’ opinions of us, or our past experiences–can fulfill our longing for security and significance. GTST, p.101.

Our silent hunger will persist unsatisfied until we can see ourselves not through the eyes of the world, but through the eyes of our loving Lord. GTST, p. 102

Do you see it? Our world says we must act, be, do everything a certain way to win approval and acceptance! We get stuck in that mode and we put ourselves through strict paces…we MUST do this “Thin Within Thing” perfectly or we beat ourselves up. We must have the perfect body, we must love God perfectly…and if we don’t, we drag out that club of condemnation and don’t stop beating ourselves up with it.

What’s worse, we assume that this is God’s way!

This is the enemy’s delight.

It is a lie that the enemy has crafted and that the world has bought into. As with many things, the exact OPPOSITE thing is true…God has done it all. Every single solitary bit of your “acceptability” to God is because of what Jesus had done. ALL of it.

More on that tomorrow!

For now, I challenge you and me…will we believe God? Will we choose to believe that what he says is true? That he accepts us totally now? Without hesitation? Without condition? Without my having to jump through a single hoop?

–> How might believing, embracing, applying this truth affect your life? Affect your eating? Affect how you view your body?

Feel free to share in the comments! I love hearing from you!

This one is bowling me over! It has been radically affecting the way I live!

WHOO HOO! 🙂