Top o’ the Mornin’ to Ya!
TLDR: Discover why chasing social acceptance keeps Kingdom Family Leaders trapped in performance mode while kingdom acceptance through Christ brings true freedom. Learn how to shift from asking “What do people think?” to “What does God think?” and find the liberation that comes from serving an audience of One.
What?
Are you wrapped up in being socially acceptable? Is that something you’re hunting for? Is that something you’re searching for?
I was having coffee with a couple of guys this morning – Kingdom builders, Christian men, fathers, husbands and leaders in their home and community. One of the guys said “You know, when I stopped caring what people really thought, then I started to thrive, I started to grow, I started to excel.” I don’t know if you count God as a people, but that’s who this guy cares about.
Some of my posts the last couple days talked about not complaining and not being of this world. So many times it gets down to socially acceptable, looking at socially acceptable being the standard. As a Kingdom Family Leader, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” – Kingdom acceptable!
I can’t do it. It’s not me. It’s not who I was created to be. I am not Kingdom acceptable. But through Christ, I am.
So many times we look at this world and rank our sins. “Oh, that’s a bad sin and that’s a worse sin and that’s a little sin and I just have little sins. So I’m acceptable. I have socially acceptable sins.” They’re all unacceptable in the Kingdom. I have socially acceptable sins. I have socially unacceptable sins. God, Christ, gives us acceptance into heaven through his sacrifice for all our sins. If we come to him, accept the gift of his death, taking our punishment and giving us eternal life in Christ. Kingdom sins don’t come in sizes.
Why?
I share this because Kingdom Family Leaders constantly struggle with the tension between social acceptance and Kingdom acceptance. We want to fit in, be respected, maintain our reputation. So we hide our “socially unacceptable” struggles while justifying our “socially acceptable” sins.
This creates a prison of performance where you’re constantly managing appearances rather than living in freedom. When you’re chasing what people think, you can never truly thrive because you’re always measuring yourself against shifting cultural standards instead of resting in Christ’s finished work.
The breakthrough comes when you realize that social acceptance and Kingdom acceptance are fundamentally different metrics. What makes you acceptable socially might keep you distant from God. What makes you acceptable to God might make you unpopular with the world.
Lesson
The ranking of sins is a human construct designed to make us feel better about our failures by comparison. “At least I’m not as bad as that person” or “My sins are socially acceptable, so I’m okay.” But there’s no scoring scale in heaven – sin is sin, and all of it separates us from God equally.
This levels the playing field in a liberating way. Your socially unacceptable struggles aren’t worse than someone else’s socially acceptable ones. The person struggling with alcohol or sex isn’t more sinful than the person struggling with pride, gossip, or greed. All of it requires the same solution: Christ’s sacrifice.
When you shift from asking “What do people think?” to “What does God think?” everything changes. You stop performing and start living authentically. You stop hiding your real struggles and start bringing them into the light. You stop comparing yourself to others and start measuring yourself against God’s grace.
The principle “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” means choosing Kingdom standards over social standards, even when it costs you popularity, reputation, or approval. Sometimes you can act Kingdom acceptable in ways that influence for Kingdom power. But the foundation is always serving an audience of One.
Apply
Identify one area where you’ve been chasing social acceptance at the expense of Kingdom values. Write down the socially acceptable sins you’ve been justifying and the socially unacceptable struggles you’ve been hiding. Bring them all before God with the same humility, recognizing they’re all covered by Christ’s sacrifice.
This week, before making a decision, pause and ask “Am I doing this because it’s socially acceptable or Kingdom acceptable?” Practice caring more about what God thinks than what people think. Notice how this shift from performance to authenticity changes your stress level and sense of freedom.
You be blessed!
Kingdom Acceptable vs. Socially Acceptable: Where Freedom Begins
