Understanding Acceptance, Validation, Affirmation and Approval

Hi everyone. I want to take a few moments to talk about some important words that we all need in our life. And some of our subscribers have written to me and have asked me to understand and to define and get some clarity on some very powerful aspects of love, especially as it pertains to God's love and how we process it. And the four words are the, the words of acceptance, validation, affirmation, and approval. And I'd actually like to just take a few moments and define them, not like just Webster's definition of defining them, but to give you some clarity on how these words process in your life. You need them. And there are many things that happen when you don't get them in healthy ways that create a lot of dysfunction, how you do relationship with God, yourself, with others, how you see your identity, and so forth.

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So approval, acceptance, validation, affirmation are all words that communicate how we receive love and how we process that out. It starts in our childhood. And when these things are not imprinted in the way that God designed us to receive them, things in us start going haywire. Transistors start firing wrong because you were meant to be loved. You were designed to be loved. And love has many ways of manifesting its power. And God even says that he is love. It doesn't just have it, he is it. So when you interact with God, you need to understand what it means to interact with love because it's the very aspect of his nature that he carries that he wants you to understand.

So let's talk about the first one, which is acceptance. And this term acceptance gets thrown around a lot, but what does it mean? And I'm gonna spend the most of my time on acceptance because we're all lacking with this understanding of loving acceptance, but yet it can be incredibly powerful when you receive it from God, when you give it to yourself, and also when you can process this in relationships around you. Acceptance is the experience of being welcomed and received into relationship. And again, I'm not trying to create a Webster's definition, I'm just creating some handles and some references for you to understand. Acceptance is the power of love because the goal of love is relationship. You are welcomed and received in. You are welcomed as you are. The work of Christ for us believers makes this so possible with God that he receives us as we are. Now, God doesn't leave us as we are, and that's important to understand. He takes us in relationship and then he moves with us in that foundation of relationship. And see, many people have not experienced the transforming power of God because they haven't truly understood what it means to truly be received and welcomed into relationship and accepted by God. In Christ Jesus, we're still basing it on all the things we've done, how good we are, how bad we are. We're still basing them on our performance. And God is wanting to clear the slate and understand truly what it means to receive that loving acceptance. And I find that transformation can't happen in its truest power until we learn the power of what loving acceptance means because it builds the bedrock of love in our lives. And all transformation happens in loving connection with God. We must come into relationship. Out of relationship is where all the transformation occurs. So God welcomes you in and says, "Alright, we're gonna take a journey." And by you interacting with me in relationship, you will be changed. My word will change you. My spirit will change you. And so God is not trying to look at you from a distance and go, "Hey, change and then come in." No, no. He, he ushered in the ultimate sacrifice so that all you have to do is believe in what he did. And this now assures connection so that he can walk with you in the transformational journey. And you'll spend your entire life discovering what Jesus paid for. It's amazing.

But what I want to do is I want to share with you some things about what acceptance is and what it is not. Just a couple couple thoughts is to help bring some clarification to the journey because I know there's a lot of confusion around these subjects. But self-acceptance is really important because many of you don't accept yourself, your good, your bad, and your ugly, and your journey. There's so much hostility you have within your thoughts against yourself. Here's some things I want to share.

Acceptance welcomes you into relationship with God, not based on what you've done, but because of God's love and his work in your life. That has to be established first and foremost.

Number two, acceptance is not affirming, supporting, or encouraging wrong. And in the days that we live in, we often love gets twisted, acceptance gets twisted, and then we redefine what God calls evil and good. That's not what his acceptance does. It doesn't redefine those things. It doesn't call evil good. But it is love's power to welcome you even while sin is present. The Bible says this, that God demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were still sinners. Okay? So this is the power of God's love that comes in to welcome us in the presence of evil that needs to be worked out in our lives, that needs freedom from. But it doesn't redefine it. It doesn't change it. The Bible says that love covers the multitude of sins, right? What does that mean? Is it ignore it? Pretend it's not there? Does it change and say, "No, that thing that was once bad, now it's good"? Now, what it does is love creates the environment by which sin can be eradicated, by which sin can be healed. Because oftentimes in the battles that you have in your life, God needs to get to the root system of those issues, those struggles. He needs to get to the bottom of it of why you do the things you don't want to do. Because until that happens, you'll always be chasing symptoms. You'll always be chasing, you're just cutting branches, and then they just keep growing back. When God's love, when God's love comes in and penetrates our hearts and we experience loving connection, we're not so condemned and beating ourselves up all the time. You've got those issues that you, that you don't like, and you know they're wrong, and you go, "Man, I want to get free. I don't get free from that issue." That's the place to be. I want to get free, but I'm not beating myself up over it. I'm receiving God's love because he's gonna help me get to the root system. So many people are under a heavy pressure and weight in their transformation, and it gets them back into law and works. And and then they're in these cycles of never getting free. God's love enters the picture so that loving relationship is going to be the key to help you unlock and get to the root system of why you do some of the stuff that you do that you don't want to do.

Number three, acceptance doesn't cheapen love. Some people think, "Well, this is gonna kind of cheapen what love should mean." What it actually does is it deepens it. It deepens the power of love because the goal is relationship. And and this is very important in how you interact with others, is that the goal is relationship, connection. And sometimes we can be so hyper-aware of people's sin issues, we forget they need to experience love, loving connection, and loving accept. Acceptance doesn't compromise truth, but it brings love as the priority. That I want you to know that you're loved, respected, that there is a relationship interaction that's taking place here where love can be manifested. Raise that. This is, this is very, very important in understanding.

Now, do you give this to yourself? That's, that's the key. Many people struggle. They don't give this to yourself. As a believer, you look at whatever you're battling, you're under this pressure and this weight to get past it, to get free, to get healed, or whatever. That pressure makes it harder to get free. It's an interesting dynamic. It almost seems contradictory because you go, "No, I want to do what's right." But this pressure comes on you, and then you self-condemn. You're under performance, you're under perfectionism, and it creates a yoke, makes everything hard. What love does is allows you to take a deep breath to go, "Alright, it's okay that I'm not okay. I want to be free, but I need to experience God's loving acceptance right now, the good, the bad, and the ugly." Then you move forward and what God's showing you in the journey.

Okay, acceptance, and this is helpful for people as well too, does not mean a problem or your current condition will stay forever. Meaning, some people are scared saying, "Well, if I, if I accept where I'm at, if I experience acceptance where I'm at, and that's gonna mean I'm gonna stay in this condition, and I'm just accepting this as my destiny." No, it's not. It's allowing you to refocus your attention on loving connection with God. His love has the power to cast out fear. His love has the power to cast out bitterness. His love has the power to cast out self-hatred. His love has the power to change your perspective. But we've gotta let it have its work.

I'm gonna give you a few more, what loving, what acceptance is and what it is not.

Acceptance allows God's love to be received, which will lead you into experiencing transformation. We have to establish the love factor, and out of that is where all transformation occurs. That's why I, and everybody I'm helping, we are on a lifelong journey of what it means to truly receive his love. And oftentimes your focus is, "God, fix me. God, fix me. God, fix me." You have been in a relationship where all the person wants to do is fix you. It's a horrible relationship. It's not fun. It's not fruitful. And so what God wants to establish is establish a true connection with you where you just know how to relate to him in his love.

Number six, without practicing acceptance, you'll live under constant condemnation, self-contempt over your battles. In other words, you're gonna become your own worst enemy.

Number seven, acceptance relieves you of the pressure to like, have to be something, gotta be somewhere, be something, or arrive in a certain state, instead of just letting his love change you.

And I know, number eight, acceptance must be actively received. I need that in an active way. Say yes to it. I need to actively say yes to that love. And so a major emphasis that I give to people is we've got to learn to be receivers of God's love, of what it means to take it in and say yes to it. People say, "Wow, it's hard. It's, it's uncomfortable, or I don't know how to do that exactly." Because that's been the plague. We've been told so much to give out, give out, give out love. We haven't learned how to truly receive that from the Father and truly receive the connection of his love. And then see ourselves with that love. And then, here's the thing, you live out your relationships based on how you see yourself. Even many of you who give out love extravagantly, but you're always burnt out and you're always tired because you make no room of receiving that love because you don't know how, you don't have references. And you stay in these cycles, or many of you sabotage relationships, or you struggle. And I understand that struggle because it's just a receptivity issue. In others, all these things wrong with you, it's just being able to tune in to the frequency of how to receive that love. And it's why I'm so passionate about the book, "God Loves Me and I Love Myself," because it, it teaches some frameworks about how to remove the resistance but yet allow love to have its work in our lives.

Okay, so let's talk about the next word, which is the word validation. This is a really important word because you all need validation. You're born to need it. And and validation is recognizing and pointing out the value of three things. And again, this is not Webster, where I'm just trying to from a help standpoint, help you to understand. It's pointing out the value of who you are. Me, like when Jesus was called out by Father God, "This is my beloved Son." He's calling out his identity. Recognizing and pointing out the value of who you are, what you are feeling. We all need validation. "Hey, this is what I'm feeling." And somebody just going, "Yeah, yeah, I can understand that." And what you have to offer. And this is a major battleground that we all struggle with. If you think about your history and your identity, you know what you've felt over the years and what you have to offer. There's so many gaps and holes and empty places where you've, you've put out so much, but it's not truly been recognized and validated. Many of you have been ignored in it, and that's created deep wounds. And I find what you're feeling now, they'll think about this. This is so important because when you're feeling something of an experience that happened in your life, so many of you have been deeply struggling for years because you went through something, you experienced that you tried to share it. It wasn't a negative experience, and people dismissed it, or they said, "That didn't happen," or they pushed it away, or they did it, just sit and connect with you. Now, whether it happened or it didn't, we don't always know how to sit down and acknowledge what somebody's feeling and perceiving. You know, all our history and our memories have flaws in them. No one remembers life perfectly, but we remember how we remember it. And sometimes what we just need is someone to just go, "Hey, I understand how you're feeling. I understand how that could be painful." To just validate, "Hey, as I'm sorting this out, maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm off, but I need to get it out." And if I feel dismissed, condemned, ignored, that is a cesspool and a breeding ground for all sorts of mental health issues, emotional issues, relationship issues. Most people that are dysfunctional, or maybe they want a lot of attention, or they overtalk, or they under talk, or or they try too hard, or they overperform, or they feel like they need to get attention, or they overachieve, or try to do so much, or they get easily angered in relationship, and it really comes down to a lack of validation. And you were meant to have that imprinted. Going back to your childhood, Jesus, before he started his ministry, the Father spoke and said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." He did three things here. He expressed love. This is, "Hey, you're loved. I love you." He told them who he was, which is what a father is supposed to do, is tell you who you are. And that's why we have so many identity issues because the father hasn't called out. Our earthly fathers didn't do what the Heavenly Father is doing. And and that is calling out your identity, validating it. "Yeah, that's who you are. You're my son. You're my daughter. This is who you are." Calling out traits in you. And then, "Who I'm well pleased." What is the well pleased? It's giving approval. Get to that in just a moment. But there's a validation there that stamps on you a security that you can carry and walk with. Validation settles you. Validation helps you to not feel crazy in all your thoughts because you get validated. "Yeah, your mind, you're feeling some stuff, and it's okay." And so many of us lack that. And many times you went to someone and shared it, and you didn't get that validation, and it just creates this, this massive wound that then can become so big, you need everyone to validate you. And when they don't, it kicks up anger in you. It kicks up a lot of thoughts that keep you from peace and and and wholeness in your life. And so it all goes back to, what was validation did you get that? Did you receive it? Now, ultimately, we can only truly get from God. But our earthly relationships are our references. The invisible God chose to show himself through visible human relationships so that we understand him. Even though we're flawed beings, we understand him. But ultimately, we've got to learn who God truly is to gain that.

It also nurtures you. Validation is a very nurturing experience to settle your heart. My wife and I talk a lot about nurture and a lack of nurture. But we live in a day and age where people lack validation. And then you do so much and it's never recognized. And even if it is, it just, it hits that deep wound, and it's now become a bucket with holes. So even when people do validate you, it doesn't really satisfy because there's an empty wound that God needs to heal. And so if these painful experiences you've had, if you haven't been validated or or just heard, "We haven't, don't even need to just be heard. Come on, just hear me out." That's a foundation of moving forward in healthy relationships. And so I want you to know that that's where a rejection root comes in big time. I talk a lot about my book, "Exposing the Rejection Mindset," where so many of our lack of validation wounds come up. When you miss out on validation in your life, you develop a wound that triggers every time people don't validate you, not being recognized, not being listened to, not being credit, giving credit. And so what you need to understand is many times these wounds can create idols in our life. And what I mean by idols is these statements that say, "Well, if people don't recognize me, if they don't validate me, that I can't be happy, and I'm gonna be irritable, and I'm gonna be empty." And people cannot 100% satisfy your need for validation. Now, don't get me wrong, we need to do a better job at it. I just going, "Hey, that was awesome. I appreciate who you are." And and and what you, who you are, what you do, how you're feeling, like that means a lot to me. How much are we doing that in our families? How much do you sit around the dinner table and just validate each other and just call out? And we're so busy in our lives, in our board meetings, in our our mission assignments, and all our performance strategies, how much of that is really, really on God's agenda for you anyway? And we're missing out on the core needs of what it means to just validate each other. And so here's the thing, I found in the area where you've struggled with validation the most, use that as radar to help others. Reach mindful of those around you. If you've been ignored, keep an eye out for people who haven't, who haven't been validated and who seem to be ignored and overlooked. Because out of your pain, God can use that as a place of ministry. But again, you want to tune your receptors into what it means to realize God's, he's, he's releasing validation over you and who you are. You have an identity that he's wanting to call out. And what you have to offer means a lot to him. And when you're in pain, he sees that, and he's there, and he's willing to hear and listen and be able to do exchange with you.

Okay, so that's a little bit about validation. Two more. The term affirmation. This is a huge need that we all have in our lives. Affirmation is the emotional support that we need, right? It's, it's, it's often verbal. Affirmation is, is, is greatly expressed through verbal words, assurance, and declarative up encouragement. So it's like, I feel when I'm around you, I feel affirmed because you emotionally support me. You say things that build me up. The Bible talks a lot about the term edification, which means a building up. And the goal of the body of Christ, even in our gatherings, is that you feel edified, you feel encouraged, you feel built up. Who you are gets affirmed. It gets called out. It gets re, like, just, just continually rebuilt. And and that structure gets stronger and stronger. And a lot of it comes through words. That's why Father God spoke those words over Jesus. Jesus needed to hear. He needed to hear his heavenly Father say, "I love you. You're my son, and I'm proud of you." And so you were created to hear that. But the problem is, we didn't hear that growing up because God designs your mother and your father to be vessels of that in your life, to demonstrate that. And that's where we lack all those holes and areas. And so we struggle in feeling affirmed. And that's where a lot of our performance issues and and struggles come out of, simply because you never heard that affirmation to say, "You're awesome." Now, I understand we live in a world that's tough. And I'm not saying raise our children in little bubbles if everything's great, you're always great, it was wonderful. No, we need to discipline. When you bring correction, love brings correction. You know, if you don't bring correction, it's actually an act of hate. It shows you don't love. Because love goes, "I, I care for this relationship so much, I want to talk about these things." But it's built on a foundation where true loving relationship and connection is there. And that affirmation is verbal. So that's why in our relationships, take the time to verbally encourage the people in your life. Maybe one day, just take your phone and go through your text messages and just look at all the people and take a moment and just speak a word of affirmation and encouragement over their life because everyone needs it. Tell them how much they're appreciated, what you see in them that is so godly that you want to point out and expand. Because the areas that get affirmed are the areas that will grow. And sometimes we pay so much attention to the things that are going wrong, we don't highlight the good of who God is to strengthen. Because affirmation is so powerful, so incredibly powerful, right? It brings us that support and that assurance. So process that out and and tuning your your senses to hear the affirmation, the declarative encouragement of God over your life.

Let's look at its final word, approval. This powerful act of love. And this one, it, it's sometimes tricky for people, but I want to explain it. The approval is the experience of receiving an official and favorable view by someone whose opinion and perspective has great meaning in your life. Now, for everybody, you long for the approval of your earthly father. I don't care what you say or what you think, you long for the approval of your dad. And you also long for the approval of your mom. And many of, much of our brokenness stems out of, you didn't get it. You didn't get that approval from them. So you took on a certain trait or activity or way of living that spawned a whole lifestyle. It simply goes back to, you didn't get that approval. You, someone in authority. That's why I said, you get an official and favorable view by someone whose opinion and perspective means a lot to you. And you didn't get it. Until now, we're these empty buckets. And it goes back to your need to hear, you know what it's like, the modern statement we use is, "I'm proud of you." Now, when Jesus was baptized, the Father says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." It has a stamp of approval. "I'm proud of you. I'm pleased with you." And it's interesting because Jesus did not begin his ministry yet. In fact, the baptism was his beginning of his earthly ministry. Up until that point, all we know of was that he worked as a carpenter, he, you know, had relationships of people in town. We don't know a ton. We knew he grew in wisdom and stature and favor. We knew he was in the temple as a kid. But the ministry officially began at the moment the Father gives love, identity, and approval. Wow. And he hadn't done the miracles yet. You would think, according to our lifestyle, "Well, wait until he dies on the cross, and then the Father goes, 'This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. You did a good job.'" Because that's how we live, right? You gain that, that approval, that momentary approval when you do a good job. But we don't know how to give approval at the beginning. You see, in the kingdom of God, you get approval from God at the start. So you don't live your life with neediness trying to gain the approval of everybody around you. And this is what causes so many of our problems. In fact, sometimes the church, even in our interaction with the world, we want the world to like us rather than truly love them. Because love has a power, there's a truth there, there's a solidness in who you are. But your fire of love is so potent, but we're so wounded, we're looking for approval everywhere we go. The Father says to Jesus, "You're my pleasure. I'm proud of you." And many of our issues come out of, you know what, we didn't hear that when you hear that growing up. So we lived for approval everywhere we went.

So I had this exercise that I felt God spoke to my heart about when I was single and I was first coming into transformative ministry. I was a pastor at the time. And every morning, like a lot of people, just be honest, I'd get up and just rush out of the day and just, you know, I had this, this bathroom. And I, and I would, I would, I would get ready in the bathroom. Once I was ready, I would walk down the stairs and right out the door. Right outside my bathroom, there's a set of stairs and walk right out the door. I'd be off to my day. Right? There was something God spoke to my heart and said, "I want to, I want to teach you what it means to grow in my love for you." And he didn't tell me, "I want you to spend two hours with me every day." He knew, he knew my attention span was all over the place. I was a hot mess, oh, struggling so much. We started with this simple exercise where I put my hand over my heart and I'd sit at the top of those stairs, come out of the bathroom. And before I rushed to the day, I would just sit at the top of those steps, put my hand over my heart, and I would just breathe in God's love for me. And this was the thought that came to my mind that I believe God used. And it was this, "I want you to think about what it means to be loved, accepted, approved, to just have my approval over who you are and receive that so that you don't spend the rest of your day trying to get it from everybody you're interacting with." What would it look like? And this led me to this question, "What would it look like in this day is that if I was fully loved, affirmed, validated, accepted, and approved of by God?" I even wrote it as a declarative statement, "I am loved, accepted, validated, affirmed, and approved of by God. He loves me. There's no pressure today. I received that love." And I would say that to myself in that moment. And then I would put it on the tapestry of the day, kind of on the canvas of what the day was gonna look like. "What would this day look like if I'm rested in his love for me?" And what it did was it assured in my ability to receive. But it also showed where I had a lot of rejection issues in my life. And I want to help you uproot them because here's the thing, I can teach and teach all day. People can't tell you your rejection issues. That's the tricky thing about, you have to discover it for yourself. Because if somebody tells you about your rejection issues, it's gonna kick up a wound, and anger is gonna come up. You're not gonna want to hear it, and you're gonna push them away and tell them, you know, they don't love you, and all that kind of stuff. You have to be open. So that's why I create this resource so that you and God can begin to discover this. And with humility, you can recognize, "Yeah, it's not just about everybody else. I've got issues I've got to work through. I've got approval issues, I've got affirmation issues, I've got validation issues, I've got acceptance issues. I don't know if it means to feel safe in my own skin. I don't know what it means to be loved by God." But yeah, I have issues that I need to overcome. Right? So we weren't taught what that looks like. We don't have references. But we need to learn. And maybe some of you need to take the next step in learning what it means to love yourself the way God loves you. I invite you to take the journey. These books can work together to learn what it means to love yourself the way that God loves you.

I pray this has been a blessing to your life. This video has impacted you at all? Would you support it? Send a one-time donation or become a partner. And that would really help us because it'll help us just to continually put out helpful material where people can experience healing and transformation in really powerful ways. I'm Mark Dehaze. God bless you and I'll see you in the next one.