Friday - Look for affirmation only in the LORD JESUS

Stop evaluating yourself. Stop comparing yourself. Stop weighing your talents and gifts, your status, your progress against those of neighbors, strangers, friends, enemies……In short: Stop judging yourself.

If doing so doesn’t leave you with feelings of pride and haughtiness- all of which the bible scorns at-believing yourself better than others, it will leave you with feelings of inferiority and jealousy, believing others are better advantaged than you.

So at any rate, just don’t judge yourself. That is not your role. Don’t look for affirmation in the wrong places, either against yourself or against others. Instead look for affirmation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul says in Galatians 6:14

“But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

God has made and leads each of us his children along our own unique paths, at our own unique pace, sometimes similar, sometimes different from others, but always unique to you as an individual.

This mistake of most believers is to think of God as some referee, some judge constantly on the look out for our mistakes, and ready to pounce, to punish us. Nothing is farther from the truth. God gave his only son Jesus, that through him, he might be reconciled to us.

When God therefore punishes us, it is to correct, to bring us to that path along which we walk and live in peace with fellow men, and which ultimately leads to his wonderful presence and kingdom.

The bible says in Hebrews 12:6 that

“For the LORD disciplines those he loves, and he punishes each one he accepts as his child.”

And in Deuteronomy 8:5

"Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son.

And in Proverbs 3:12

“For whom the LORD loves He reproves, Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.”

God therefore only corrects us, and we ought to be glad, as it affirms that we are his children, whom he cares to correct.

In the Lord, and not ourselves or others, should we therefore seek for affirmation. He says in Jeremiah 29:11.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, said the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.