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You Have the Right to Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin

You Have the Right to Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin

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Imagine being untethered from the controlling opinions of others. Imagine not thinking about what other people think about you. Imagine being so connected to God that your daily experience is the enjoyment of His pleasure.

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How cool would it be to go through a week, a month, or a year out from under the control of what someone thinks about you?

  • Are you comfortable in your skin? How many of your decisions are controlled by what others think of you or what you think others think of you?
  • When you buy clothes, do you buy them to honor the Lord or to keep in step with cultural expectations?
  • When in a situation where you need to provide correction, do you withhold your opinion due to fear?
  • When you invite folks to your home, do you scurry around making sure everything is just right—whatever you think right should be—because you want to control your guest’s opinions of you?
  • Do you struggle with over-guilt? Perhaps you sinned a long time ago, and you still carry the condemnation like a bag of rocks on your back.

One of the more common entanglements you’ll run into with people is what the Bible calls the fear of man (Proverbs 29:25). Sometimes, you’ll hear folks talk about it as being comfortable in your skin. Proverbs teach us that if you’re not comfortable in your skin, you’re in a trap of your making.

The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe (Proverbs 29:25).

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What Opinion Controls You?

The key to overcoming the damaging control of others is to have an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ. If I’m putting my “state of being” in anything other than Christ, my strength and comfort level will never be more significant than the power of the thing that controls me.

If I am placing my “state of being” in the person and work of Jesus Christ, my strength and comfort levels are transcendent (Philippians 4:13). There is no higher power, force, or opposing entity that can subdue the King of kings and Lord of lords.

In Christ, you have something better than worldly wisdom, wealth, or fame. This concept raises a few questions for you to consider. Would you like to be comfortable in your skin? Would you like to be completely untethered from the opinion of others? Would you like to be secure? If you do, then be assured that you can get there. Perhaps you could say soon,

Hi, my name is (fill in your name), and because of the regenerative force of the gospel, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the illumination of the Word of God, and the empowering favor of the grace of God, I’m perfectly comfortable in my skin.

Wouldn’t it be great never to have to live in fear of displeasing someone or being over-guilty when someone disapproves of you? To be free from man’s opinion while living securely in the reality of God’s pleasure in you because of the work of the Son should be the goal for any Christian.

To do this, you will have to come to terms with what some call a “works mentality.” This kind of thinking pesters you into believing that what you do is what matters most—that you can’t be right with God or others unless you behave in a certain way.

Believing your works matter the most is usually the nut that the fearful person must crack if they want to be free from man’s opinion. It does not matter who you are performing for; it will never be enough for you to experience unconditional acceptance.

  • God will never accept your works because even your best offerings are impure.
  • Your friends will always like you, no matter what. If you have to perform to please your “friends,” you need to wake up and realize that what you have is not a friendship.

Just as I Am

If you embrace the “yo-yo mentality” that your performance is the way to find acceptance, you’re barking up the wrong tree. You will be forever trying to figure out your best response that will fill your craving for “most favored status” among your peers.

God accepts you just as you are, warts and all. He receives you based on the finished works of His Son, not your lowly, earthly offerings. You can’t please Him with your human-centered actions. You will receive His praise when you accept the works of His Son.

Once you accept the labors of Jesus and stop striving or positioning yourself as though your works matter most of all, you can be free and untethered from striving for favorable opinions from others. There is rest for the person who is resting in the works of Christ alone.

This attitude does not mean you don’t have to ever change or that you do not have to be obedient to the teaching of the Word of God. It means that your obedience is not to gain His good favor, but the desire to obey is a response to His excellent approval that is already on your life.

You’re not working to find acceptance, but you’re working because you’re accepted. Obedience is an expression of gratitude for what God did for you, not so you can change His opinion to a more favorable one. If you have accepted the works of Jesus, the Father has a plenary, wonderful, and satisfying opinion of you.

True Friends Are like God

In like manner, real friends imitate God similarly (Ephesians 5:1). They do not like you because of what you have or what you can do for them. They like you because they want to imitate their Lord: God is love, and so are real biblical friends. To have a friendship that is dependent on your performance is not the biblical definition of friendship.

Biblical friends are fellow beggars who need the grace of God. They have benefited from that grace, and because of that, they can extend grace to each other. Biblical friends do not hold the relationship as a ransom—you meet my expectations, and I will like you. A biblical friend likes you because it is a choice, not based on your performance. Grace-based friendship is a picture of our grace-based gospel.

As an expression of gratitude for the friendship, you do biblical things for your friend like being kind, protective, generous, or expressing gratitude for each other. You don’t do these things as a bargaining chip designed to hold the friendship in place, but because you want to reciprocate with the same grace that has been extended to you by them.

And when your biblical friendships get rocky, you persevere because you did not base the bond on works but grace. Just like your relationship with God, it is in these moments that the redemptive nature of the friendship comes into view.

Comfort Begins in Christ

Being comfortable with God and others begins with Christ. Before you can ever become comfortable in your skin, you have to find your comfort zone. And that comfort zone is in Christ alone.

Once you are “ensconced in Christ” and are maturing in that relationship, you should be gradually freed from opinion seeking. If you do not experience freedom from the opinions of others, you need to look no further than the dynamics of your relationship with Christ.

There are many Christians who are still heavily influenced by their culture, their peers, and other people like spouses, employers, or authority figures. Being insecure around others or overly influenced by others communicates a theological breakdown in a person’s soul.

Men are most prone to crave a favorable opinion from others based on their vocation, affluence, and reputation. Women are more prone to desire an acceptable response from others based on their perceived appearance, physicality, and station in life.

The man or woman who is secure in Christ is free to be himself or herself in any context while seemingly oblivious to what others think about them. This “biblical condition” is not a detached aloofness but a freedom that is found in Christ alone.

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A Different Kind of Goodness

To reach a state of eternal and unwavering approval, you must hang your hat on something other than your looks, money, earning potential, and physical presentation.

  • There are no works you can do that will satisfy any person at all times.
  • There are no works you can do that will satisfy God at any time.

Eternal and unwavering approval begins with another kind of righteousness, a righteousness that will always be unearned. To be comfortable in your skin, you must know that you will forever be right, never wrong, and completely free from condemnation (Romans 8:1).

There is no way to achieve this “state of being” apart from Christ. A person who has been profoundly accepted by God is thoroughly free. The Scriptures tell us that our behavior will never produce enough rightness to experience a restored relationship with God. We need a different kind of goodness.

For by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20).

Righteousness comes through belief in a righteous performer, not through your behavior. God has manifested and actualized His righteousness apart from the law. Through Jesus, there is a new way.

  • Will you rest in the works of another? Will you stop striving, stop performing, and stop seeking one more thing? Will you rest in Christ?
  • Will you stop striving, stop performing, and stop seeking one more thing? Will you rest in Christ?
  • Will you rest in Christ?

Steps to freedom

But you ask, “Will you be more practical than that? I love Christ, and I know He is the way to freedom, but I don’t know how to break from the bondage of fear and rest in His alternate righteousness.”

Here are four things that I recommend you pray about so you can be free. Take these things to the Lord and begin attacking your fear of disapproval—your striving for acceptance.

  1. Identify – Name specific areas where you know you are striving for approval. Perhaps it’s the way you dress or how you guard your reputation. Maybe you have a secret sin. It is something about how you relate with God or others that pushes you out of your comfort zone. There is a condition of anxiousness, tension, nervousness, or guilt in your soul.
  2. Acknowledge – Pray specifically for God to break you of these things. Confess these things to God, seek His forgiveness, and begin mapping out a plan to walk a different way.
  3. Share – Now that you have identified a few specific traps that tempt you to be nervous about being looked at in an unfavorable light and you have begun a repentance process, the next big step is to share with others what God is teaching you. Let at least one friend know your struggles and invite their care into your life.
  4. Accept – Be humble enough to accept their observations and make practical plans to have ongoing discussions about this trap that ensnares you (Galatians 6:1). You must hold the person you are sharing with accountable for holding you accountable. Don’t let them off the hook; make them help you.

Justification and Sanctification Compared

Be Justified by His Propitiation

If you are a Christian, you are justified by His grace. You have been declared not guilty in God’s court of law. It does not get any better than this. You are a free man or woman in Christ.

In justification, there is nothing you can do. It is something that is done to you by Another. It is a gift from God. Justification is a positional condition—it is who you are in Christ, based on the works of Christ.

Though it costs you nothing, it cost Christ His righteous life: He died for your sins. God, being a just God, declared an offering to satisfy His holy demands. Jesus Christ fully absorbed and met God’s righteous requirements, which defines propitiation.

Christ “satisfied” (propitiation) the wrath of God, and that sacrifice opened the way for you to have salvation and to be positionally right with God. Stop trying to behave your way to acceptance and start believing in the Savior and His works on the cross.

It is His righteousness. It is His justification. It is His mercy. It is His grace. If you have accepted the works of Christ, you are born again. At the cross, justice and mercy met, and you saw the righteousness of God demonstrated.

  • Justice says there must be a punishment for sin.
  • Mercy says I will punish another instead of you.
  • Righteousness is what you get. It is approval from God because of the Son, and now you have the right to be comfortable in your skin.

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