I Have Nothing to Prove

Ever since I read Jennie Allen's book Restless I have loved her writing! Jennie's new book is called Nothing to Prove and I knew right away when I read the title that I wanted to read it. Most of us spend so much energy trying to prove our worth don't we? We work so hard trying to measure up, we want others to see that we are great at what we do and that we can "do it all", preferably at the same time. We risk wearing ourselves out in the process while we are running hard after acceptance, approval, attention and praise from others. We live in a culture that often tends to base a person's worth on things like career status, beauty, prestige and power. It's no wonder we are worn out from trying to live up to our culture's standard of what a successful woman's life is supposed to look like.


Jennie Allen shows us that God has an entirely different view of womanhood than our culture. If we look to the Bible we find out that we are fully accepted, appreciated, valued and loved by God just the way we are. We also find out that there is absolutely nothing we can do to earn God's love. God loved each one of us long before we were born and we neither gain nor loose his love for us based on our actions. When we become saved and are in Christ our souls are secure forever. Do you know what that means? It means that even if we didn't do one more good deed for the rest of our lives we couldn't loose our salvation. It's not our good deeds that saves our souls, it's our faith in Jesus Christ. When we are saved we are free, free to be who we are.


Yes, God will call each one of us to do different things with our lives that will help other people and bring him glory, but his love for us is not based on our actions. We serve God because it brings joy and great purpose to our lives, not because we are trying to be "good enough" for God. God's love for each one of us is a free gift, it's never earned. Once this truth sinks in we can let go of trying to find acceptance, approval and praise from other people, because we know we are fully accepted and loved by God himself and nothing compares to that. We can now love others freely, without trying to get something from them. We no longer love others in order to get attention, acceptance and approval from them but because we enjoy serving and loving others. That is the ultimate freedom.