Focus on God's opinion

People are everything to Jesus! He made us for relationship and intimate connection with eachother. That has and will always be the case. However, He never intended for others to be the gauge for your life, the determinant of your standard, or the foundation for why you think what you think about you + the world around you.
Sometimes, the desire for affirmation or approval is obvious and you’re aware.
Other times, it’s hidden in the basic human tapestry of connection, belonging, and community. Conversation and communication is necessary! Holy! Crucial! However, when your mind focuses on the perception of your faith rather than the living of it, people’s opinion have superseded even the One we all claim to worship. Since the enemy has no ground to stand on inside of us, He will make a lot of noise around us, hoping we misdirect our attention to what people think and misalign our adoration accordingly.

I think God wants us to get this so badly because He knows how much of a trap it is—how hard we will continue to work to keep up with the Joneses, all while wondering why we are doing it because we don’t even feel peace in the process of getting there!
I think God knows how fickle the human spirit can be and how unreliable their affirmation really is and He yearns for us to know it really is possible to not be controlled or affected by the opinions of man.

Have you ever been around someone who so obviously placed God first in their life, you didn’t even have to wonder who determined how they lived?
When someone operates counter-cultural because they’re choosing to honor God, what does that usually do?
It lights a fire!!!! It gains respect and admiration of man because guess what? ALL of humankind is searching for the trustworthy voice to cling to and WE get to be an example!

What would your life look like if you let go of what they think about your job, your appearance, your social status, your parenting, your vocality about your faith, etc.?

In the end, it’s you + Jesus. That’s it. Nobody else comes. What will you say? What will you wished you had released so that you could’ve run towards Him?