Ephesians 1 in the Authorised version tells us that we are ‘accepted in the Beloved’ (Eph 1:6) Mark preached on acceptance on Sunday evening, beginning first of all by asking if we had ever modified our behaviour in order to be acceptable to others.
Have we ever…
… dressed to please other people?
… modified our speech to fit in?
….pretended to be something else just to feel acceptable to others?
… bought things to impress other people rather than because we really want or need those things?
People may judge us by outward appearances, but God sees the heart (1 Sam 16:7) and it is always better to be real than to be a fake.
Chameleons are lizards which can often change colour according to their background and surroundings. This is a kind of camouflage and can help them to survive. So… we may have green chameleons…
or we may have orange chameleons…
or even striped ones!
Chameleons may benefit from this ability to merge with their backgrounds, but we are not chameleons. God wants us to be real people, not adapting our behaviour according to the company we keep, but allowing His life to shine through us. Moreover, sometimes we even try to do things to be acceptable to God, failing to understand that it is God who has made the way for us to be accepted in the Beloved.
Reading the Word, praying and doing good works are to be commended, but they are not in themselves enough to make us acceptable. Only the blood of Jesus can make us acceptable to a holy God – any spiritual sacrifices we make are acceptable to God because they are through Jesus (1 Pet 2:4-5) Grace is God’s unearned favour, and we need to understand that we are accepted because of what Christ has done, not because of what we can do.
“I’m forgiven because You were forsaken
I’m accepted, You were condemned
I’m alive and well
Your Spirit is within me
Because You died and rose again”
(Billy James Foote)