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Day 22: The Gift vs. The Wrapping Paper

Lord Jesus, what do You want to say to me about the way You love Yourself and the way You want me to love myself?

Darling, I would like to talk about the verse I showed you today:

2 Corinthians 10:17-18 “But ‘let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.’ For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends.”

Dear one, you are “the one whom the Lord commends.” I have been commending you in many ways and telling you what I think of you and how much I love you and every time I say “I am proud of you,” I am commending you.

And Jesus treasured My commendation so much; He lived for My approval and affirmation and not for any other person’s. He knew that My words of affirmation are what matter most.

The badge you will carry around in the kingdom of heaven will be what I say about you, pure and simple. Because everyone will be in perfect, full, complete agreement with Me by then. There will be no multitude of opinions about My judgments. Everyone will have submitted to My wisdom, freely, trusting Me and honoring Me so much.

What I say about you at the judgment seat of Christ you will carry for eternity. That is why this matters so, so much. That is why it is so, so foolish to live for the opinion of anyone but Me in this life: everyone else’s opinion is going to change! Only I can give you My eternal opinion–and in so doing, I am also giving you the eternal opinion of everyone else in My kingdom, even if they don’t recognize it yet.

Everyone in heaven will agree with what I say to you now. Their current opinion is like the wrapping paper you will tear open and throw away. Our eternal opinion, both theirs (and yours) and Mine, is like the present inside that you will keep forever. But you have thrown away the present to keep the wrapping paper!

The wrapping paper is the temporal opinion of other humans now, when they still disagree with Me.

The gift inside is both My opinion and their eternal opinion, when they come into agreement with Me forever.

Darling, you are behaving like a baby, for babies eat the wrapping paper and ignore the present. Babies are fascinated with the worthless paper because it makes a crackly noise. But I don’t want you to be like that anymore. I want you to mature and throw aside the paper to seize the gift, as an older child does, as Jesus did. The gift is valuable and will last forever. The paper will soon be thrown away.

I don’t want you to crave people’s good opinion, because that is like eating paper, and it will make you sick if you eat too much of it. Nor do I want you to fear their criticism or their judgment or their bad opinion, whether expressed or unexpressed, for all their threatening is just like the noise of crackling paper as it is thrown away.

Life for My affirmation, as Jesus did. He called it, “the reward of the Father who sees in secret” (Matthew 6:4, 6). As Tim Keller said, “The praise of the praiseworthy of beyond all reward.” Cultivate seeing Me as Most Praiseworthy in your heart, because then hearing Me say “Well done, good and faithful servant,” both in this life and the next, will matter more to you than anybody else’s good opinion ever could. And you will risk losing your reputation to keep My commendation, as Mary did. You will throw away the paper to keep the prize inside, the prize that lasts forever.

Published in2-Way JournalingLoving myself like Jesus does

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