Acceptable is not quite the same as unconditional love

This week reading about Cain and Abel has me thinking about the three issues of self-esteem. People want to be loved, be capable, be accepted. I’ve memorized verses about the first two, but hadn’t given much focus to the third one.

I know God accepts me, yet as I look at how Scripture and how the book Recalling the Hope of Glory talk about what is acceptable worship and what is not, I’m being challenged to think more deeply. God accepts me, but obviously is not happy with everything that I do. Even I’m not happy with everything I do. This morning I did a long study to see what the Bible says about God’s acceptance.

One of my commentaries says that contrary to the pagan viewpoint, the Bible is clear that “prayers and sacrifices are acceptable to God because a man’s person is acceptable.” It goes on to quote Genesis 4:4-5: “The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering: but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.”

This is what I wrote about yesterday. God’s acceptance of Abel’s offering showed that Abel’s person had already been accepted in that he gave his offering with a sincere and righteous heart (Hebrews 11:4), but Cain didn’t. He had a bad attitude that clearly showed up in his response after God told him that his offering was not accepted.

The “pagan viewpoint” is that giving any offering makes us acceptable to God. This is not biblical and has never been biblical, not in the Old Testament with its system of offerings and sacrifices, nor in the New Testament where Christ becomes our sacrifice. We can’t claim that Christ covers our sin and then keep on sinning. God wants total obedience.

As I read hundreds of verses about “acceptance” I realize that God’s unconditional love is not why He accepts us. Instead, acceptance has always been based on His standards. Whatever anyone offers God, the one making the offer and the offering must not in any point fall short of His perfect standard. He says that only those who persist in this high level of perfection may claim the reward of eternal life for their works.

But no one can do it. We all fall short of the glory of God. Only Jesus Christ lived a perfect life, and only He is accepted because only He merited God’s verdict: “This is My Son in whom I am well pleased.”

Because I am not and cannot be perfect, my salvation could not be attained by doing what God accepts. I am saved through trusting Christ as my Savior and being incorporated into Christ, receiving the gift of His righteousness from God. This makes me accepted by God—and God does it. Through grace He makes me “accepted in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:6) and my acceptance is based on what Jesus did, not what I do.

Now that I am a Christian, I fear I’ve had a tendency to think that any service to God is now acceptable. However, this morning’s vast readings of verses about acceptance show me that His standards remain. This is made clear throughout the Bible such as in verses like this from Malachi . . .

“When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?” says the Lord Almighty. Now implore God to be gracious to us. With such offerings from your hands, will he accept you?”

. . . and like these from Isaiah 58 and Micah 6:

“Is that what you call a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord? Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen?” (And he goes on to describe acts of sacrificial goodness . . . )

“With what shall I come before the Lord and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

The NT does affirm that I am made righteous by faith. Romans 9:30 says, “What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith” is about those who were strangers to God and indifferent about acceptance with Him. Yet, they heard the Gospel and as soon as they received and believed it, they were justified in God’s sight and entered His family. Their acceptance was not a matter of religious history or ritual, or about anything they did or didn’t do. They were accepted because of His grace, through faith.

The Bible warns me about thinking faith is the end of the matter. He wants goodness to flow out of that, and not ordinary human goodness, but His standard of goodness, and with the right motives. Jesus said, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

I can try to impress people and be acceptable by doing good things. I can also get into a ‘do good and please God’ mode that is addressed in the book of Galatians as “another gospel,” but acceptance isn’t about me doing good. It is about Christ and His goodness given to me.

On the other hand, God will not accept anything less than perfection. Jesus also said, “Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Of course sin falls short of perfection and thankfully He covers that. 1 John 2:1 says, “My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.”

But I’m supposed to rise above sin and “walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.”

No wonder that many people find the Bible confusing. In a nutshell it says God only accepts perfection, and we must be perfect, not only in what we do but who we are. Then it says we are not perfect, but fall short and our sin makes us anything but acceptable.

The answer is Jesus. He is the perfect one, the one who “fulfilled all righteousness” by saying no to sin and yes to God in all points. He identified with me in every aspect of life and testing, and only He passed all the tests. His life and the offering of it on the cross are accepted by God, and in Christ God accepts me.

I am “in Christ” because God put me there. Christ is “in me” because God put Him there. As a hand in a glove, He moves in me, motivates me, is my source and resource. As He says in John 15:5, “Without Me you can do nothing.”

The glove has been accepted because of the Hand, but if the glove moves without the hand motivating it, that movement is not acceptable. I’m made capable by the Hand, so know “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

I clearly see that unlike the love of God which is totally unconditional, being accepted by God has limits. He loves me because of who He is. He accepts me as a person because I am in Christ, but I still need to seek His will—because not everything a Christian does is acceptable to Him.