For the LORD takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with salvation. (Psalm 149:4)
You probably believe that God loves you, but do you believe that He likes you as His child? Maybe we have a broken view of God. We believe He loves us because He gave us His one and only Son to die for our sins. But we also think He simply puts up with us because we are not perfect like Jesus. Maybe your view of God is distorted because you read your earthly parents’ relationship with you into your relationship with God. If you parents simply “put up” with you, that’s how you think God views you. Yet, the psalmist praises God because He takes pleasure in His people.
Maybe the thought of God delighting in us is still hard to believe. Zephaniah 3:17 records, “He will rejoice over you in gladness.” Can you imagine God filled with so much delight in you, that He sings over you? Why can we be certain God delights in His children? It’s not because we have earned it. It’s because Jesus did. Because we have received Jesus perfect record of living through faith, our sin stained record is now replaced with Jesus’ one. So just as the Father declared over the Son when Jesus was baptized, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” we too receive that declaration over us because we are in Christ.
As we grow in believing this truth of God’s delight for us, the insecurities that we face and the need for others’ approvals become less attractive and loses its grip on us because we have all the acceptance we need in God.