Romans 15:7 says “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” NIV
What is Acceptance? What does it mean to say, “God accepts me”? How is it different than “God loves me”?
Acceptance is an elementary yet fundamental component of relationships. It requires trust, forgiveness, and vision in another person.
Webster’s defines it as: the action or process of being received as adequate or suitable.
Adequate? Suitable? Well that’s great! Can you image that in someone’s wedding vows: “my bride, you are adequate and I promise to be just adequate enough for you”.
But what does that mean when we don’t accept each other? We’re saying that the other person isn’t adequate in some respect and it puts pressure on that person to change in order to become adequate–the deeper the relationship the greater the pressure.
So if you’re struggling with whether God accepts you or not, then you’re dealing with one of the elementary questions a person has to answer–and that’s okay, as long as you recognize that and seek out the answer now. If God does not accept you, then what more must you do or become to be acceptable?
In Genesis 4:7 God tells Cain “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?”
In fact after the fall of man, being accepted by God was all about obedience. They were acceptable only when they obeyed and for as long as they obeyed. Is this part of the New Covenant (NC) too? Jeremiah 31:32, in a series of verses which prophesy about the NC says, “It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors”. Therefore if your NC sounds or looks like the Old Covenant (OC), then you might want to look into that. I believe acceptance is one of the primary ways the NC differs from the OC.
So what inhibits us from giving our acceptance to others? What do we fear will happen if we say, “I accept you for who you are” to someone? I think we fear they will stop wanting to change or become better, or that it somehow condones whatever imperfections that are in their life now. But that’s why acceptance takes vision.
Romans 5:8 says “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Human mentality is to pay someone at the end of a job once the work is adequately completed. God is different! (Thank God!) He paid for us in full at the very beginning.
Accepting one another, especially in our closest relationships, is therefore an important way that we can love each other as God loves us. It’s also a way to trust God, since God has shown that acceptance is what creates a safe harbor in which the people we love can change.