Catching God's Approval

I had just received my first church assignment: to write and design a bulletin insert for an upcoming toddler day camp.  I was ecstatic.  A rookie intern, I eagerly pursued the project.  This was my opportunity to use my gifts for the Lord.

I poured over the assignment for hours, carefully crafting every word.  I wanted to give it my absolute best—and I did.  Countless hours later, I came up with something I was pleased with and was sure God would be too.

Something, however, was missing.  The piece needed a finishing touch.  “You can’t run an insert to capture children’s attention and imaginations without a visual,” I thought.  Fortunately, one of my fellow interns was an incredibly gifted artist and even more importantly, he had the ability to capture the essence of childhood through delightful cartoons.  So I asked if he could put something together and he agreed.  The finished product was ideal.  The insert was now completed and I couldn’t wait to glorify God with my work—or so I thought.

The insert ran and our overseeing pastor loved it—but there was one problem: the artist received all of the credit for the insert.  The pastor went on and on about the fantastic idea the artist had, how creative he was and how perfectly suitable the piece was for the event. My heart silently cried out, “I did it, I did it. Yes, the artwork is great, but it was my idea! How can you not notice what I did, that I am the one behind it all?”

As my heart grew increasingly hurt and discouraged I heard a still whisper, “Who did you say you were doing this for, Who?” I thought it had been for the Lord; after all, that was my desire, but as I looked beneath the surface a painful reality hit me, “I didn’t do it for the Lord really—I did it for me, for my glory, for my credit.”

I was aghast at the deceitfulness of my own heart. All the time I thought I was seeking the applause of heaven; I was really seeking the applause of men for myself. I have never forgotten that incident. Every time my faithful, associate pastor husband was robbed of the applause I thought he should have received over the past four years, I was reminded that in God’s economy it doesn’t matter who receives the praise along the way as long as God’s purposes are carried out for His glory. Our God is a very careful accountant and nothing we do for Him ever goes unnoticed in heaven. It is a great mark of spirituality to be able to work out of sight of others, kept by the Holy Spirit and in full view of heaven. Mrs. Charles Cowman in Streams in the Desert said, “The day will come when Jesus will give the rewards, and He makes no mistakes, although some people may wonder how you came to merit such a reward, as they had never heard of you before.” Our business is to remain faithful where God places us regardless of whether we are noticed or not.

The proof that we are useful and giving God the glory He deserves is that we are rightly related to Him. When we are rightly related to God we will do our best whether someone is noticing us or not. We will remain faithful to the task despite the gross ingratitude’s along the way, and even when our name has been left off the credits.

Oswald Chambers said, “The real saint is like a musician who does not need the approval of the audience if he can catch the look of approval from his Master.”

Catching His approval is all that matters. If we’re truly serving the Lord to glorify Him in all we do, His look is all we’re after. Nothing we do—small or large—will ever go unnoticed by Him. He alone is the audience we must desire to capture—not man’s. The enemy loves to get us off track by seeking our own glory. But it’s when we seek our glory and not God’s that we become useless in His hands.

This scenario reminds me of a harsh rebuke Jesus gives the Pharisees in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6. Here we meet the famous Pharisees, those conceited, self-righteous, self-seeking religious leaders of the day parading around the streets and synagogues in all of their spiritual garb to be “seen by men.” These men were doing the right thing—praying—but for the wrong reason, like I was when I created the bulletin. The Pharisees took a beautiful spiritual discipline of prayer and exploited it by seeking self-glorification. They were concerned with impressing others. “Hey, look at me, look at what I am doing, look how spiritual, how useful I am.”

They thought they loved to pray, but if you had looked beneath their smug exteriors you would have discovered, unfortunately, it was not prayer that they loved, nor the God to whom they were praying. They simply loved themselves and the opportunity which public prayer afforded them to draw attention to themselves. As John 12:43 says, “They loved praise from men more than praise from God.”

How easy it is for that same desire to creep into our ministry lives as well. Before we realize it we find ourselves parading around the corners of our churches looking for man’s approval. We yearn for others to know all the time and energy we’ve devoted to the Kingdom, secretly desiring their praises. If we’re not careful we soon become enslaved to the insatiable need to be admired by men forfeiting the glory that should go to God alone.

Doing ministry to be noticed is the first indication that we’re doing the right things for the wrong reasons. Jesus goes on in the Sermon to say, “They have received their reward ‘in full’” by doing that. What does He mean? For the Pharisees, there would be no further reward. Human glory and praise is short—lived, temporary, fleeting—here today, gone tomorrow.

If I were to ask that pastor about that bulletin insert today, years later, I suspect she wouldn’t even remember it or the praise she gave; and that’s just the point; only God remembers all we do for Him and one day when He returns He will crown us with a reward. Meanwhile, our assignment here is to use our lives and gifts, that He has entrusted to us, to bring glory to Him in whatever rank He has placed us.

Jesus went on in the Sermon to instruct us that when we pray (or when we do any kind of ministry or spiritual discipline) to do it in “secret.” God knows our tendency to want to take the credit, to take the crown for ourselves so He lays out a principle: do it in “secret” where you can be sure the Master’s glance will always see it and where it will be done for the right reason. The Pharisees turned a good devotion into sin because they focused on themselves and not God.

How about you? Do you have some Pharisee in you; in your ministry? Are you trying to win the approval of men or of God? Only one glance will count for eternity.

There is a retired couple in the church where I grew up who touch everyone and everything they meet for eternity. Whether it’s an act of kindness, a word of encouragement, speaking, writing, counseling—whatever they do their lives spread glory to God, their lives invariably lift your eyes to Jesus.

Throughout the years I have known them, I’ve never once witnessed them drawing attention to themselves or seeking a personal crown. Their only passion is Jesus and serving Him. I am sure if they were to hear the countless testimonies of all the lives they’ve touched, they would not have the remotest notion that they have been so dramatically influencing others. But as Oswald Chambers said, “God rarely allows a soul to see how great a blessing he is; He knows our susceptibility to pride. In fact, the lives that have been of most blessing and use to God are those who are the least conscious of it.”

Our goal, our passion, our calling is to concentrate on Jesus, to fix our eyes on the Master.  And it’s only as we concentrate on God, paying attention to Him alone that out of our lives will flow rivers of living waters. Rivers of usefulness, rivers of Holy Spirit empowered ministry that always inevitable brings people looking to Jesus. In fact, in the history of God’s work you will nearly always find that it has begun from the obscure, the ignored, the unknown but from those who were deeply in love with Jesus Christ.

It is truly a miracle that God, in all His greatness and holiness, takes our sinful, weak, and broken lives and uses them to showcase His glory. When our eyes are fixed on Jesus—not ourselves—our lives unconsciously become a place of refreshment and ministry for others. And He receives the glory in the process.

The life fixed on the Master seeks one purpose only: to know Him, giving Him all of the glory, honor and praise. There is no greater personal reward than catching the look of the Master in all we do.