Accepted in Christ

by: Carole L. Haines

I have a train track for a mind sometimes, and that same old train of thought keeps barreling down the track. It’s that same malady of thinking that someone is going to find something wrong with me and throw me away.  I mean let’s face it, they are going to find something wrong with me because I am a work in progress and will be ‘til the day I die.  But everybody is a work in progress, I just seem to be much more aware of it than some.

God gave me a verse this morning that really blessed me and revealed an inner struggle that must be dealt with.

⁷ Therefore accept one another, just as the Messiah also accepted you, to the glory of God. (Romans 15:7 HCSB)

I think I have been rejecting myself for years and years, never living up to my own ideas of who I am supposed to be. Never living up to the ideas other people have tried to tell me I need to be. I am accepted by Jesus, the One who made me, My Creator, who knit me together in my mother’s womb. He decided my hair would be blond, my eyes blue, my personality, unique and quirky. He made every precious one of us. He looks at us and calls us His beloved children.

I believe I need to accept myself because I am accepted in my Savior. I need to make a conscious choice to see myself as His creation, His Precious child.  We all do. We will never really accept others in Christ until we accept ourselves in Christ, fully His, fully loved, fully redeemed. The above verse begins with a ‘therefore,” so let’s look at what comes right before it.

⁵ Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement allow you to live in harmony with one another, according to the command of Christ Jesus, ⁶ so that you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with a united mind and voice.

Accepting one another impacts how we glorify God. He wants us to bring Him glory with a united mind and voice. We cannot do this if we reject ourselves or others in the Body.  He has accepted us, and He is the final authority in everything. The word ‘accepted’ means this in Greek:
to take to one’s self. to take as one’s companion, to take by the hand in order to lead aside, to take or receive into one’s home, with the collateral idea of kindness, to receive, i.e. grant one access to one’s heart, to take into friendship. (Strong’s Concordance).

Imagine accepting yourself as a companion, with the idea of showing kindness to her, like a friend. We need to embrace Christ’s acceptance of ourselves in order to really accept one another as He does. I will leave you with a concluding Scripture from the same passage:

¹³ Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in Him so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13)

Acceptance of others must begin with accepting ourselves as Christ has accepted us. May our journey to a deeper walk with Jesus and each other begin today with this truth.