If you’re anything like me, you are really good at beating yourself up on a regular basis. Most of us live with a lot of guilt. We were never good enough. Everything is our fault. This is because all our lives, we have learned acceptance based on performance. If we behave properly, we will be loved and accepted, but one mess-up and love is withdrawn. We are expected to do well, so we only hear about it when we don’t.

God loves us on a wholly different basis. With God, we begin with love and acceptance and we move out from there.

When John the Baptist baptized Jesus, a voice was heard from heaven as He came up out of the water, “This is my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with Him” (Matthew 3:17). At this point in his ministry, Jesus has done nothing to prove Himself or earn his Father’s approval. No healings. No teachings. No disciples. His baptism signaled the beginning of his ministry, and yet we find God fully pleased with Him at this point. It was a given.

It is the same thing with us. God delights in us just as we are. You are pleasing to God already. Or to put it another way: God likes you. This may be hard to believe but it is true. You bring pleasure to God right now as you read this.

God’s love is extended freely through Christ’s death on the cross. It’s what Christ did that brings us into fellowship with God, not what we do. The things you do today will not cause God to like you or dislike you, they will grow out of knowing you already bring Him pleasure. And there is nothing you can do to alter that fact.

So take it. Bask in it. Yes, right now, without lifting a finger, God is pleased with you. He made you for this. He made you and He delights in you. This is where we start.