Validation

Today’s devotion focuses on endorsement… validation… recommendation. The Message translates today’s verse this way: “Does it sound like we’re patting ourselves on the back, insisting on our credentials, asserting our authority? Well, we’re not. Neither do we need letters of endorsement, either to you or from you. You yourselves are all the endorsement we need. Your very lives are a letter that anyone can read by just looking at you. Christ himself wrote it—not with ink, but with God’s living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives—and we publish it” (2 Corinthians 3:1-3). What Paul is saying here is that there’s no need to go around speaking so highly of ourselves, trying to get people to pay attention to us or to accept our authority. Living your lives for Jesus is enough. It is the life lived that preaches louder than anything you could say, or anything another could say on your behalf.

We are very accustomed to getting referral letters. When you are applying for a job opportunity, you may have referral letters speaking of your worthiness. When you are applying for college, again we request these letters of recommendation that will help to showcase the reasons why the college should allow entry to an academic program. Letters are words, whereas our lives are actions on display. This speaks louder than words. Anyone can talk the talk, but not everyone can walk the walk. Paul questions if we would even need letters of recommendation because our lives being lived out in Christ provide the endorsement. He validates. He qualifies. He is the only recommendation we need in life. 

Remember where your validation comes from and you will no longer be concerned with speaking highly of yourself. Instead, your heavenly Father will qualify and endorse you. You will not need to seek out validation from others. Your life itself will provide the validation you need as you follow Christ. No patting yourself on the back. No listing your credentials to see how many initials you can add behind your name. We are sons and daughters of the King. Live it out. The Spirit testifies. Your life points to Jesus. No need to seek out additional validation. You have arrived. You are here. And God is with you!

“Are we beginning to sound like those who speak highly of themselves? Do you really need letters of recommendation to validate our ministry, like others do? Do we really need your letter of endorsement? Of course not! For your very lives are our ‘letters of recommendation,’ permanently engraved on our hearts, recognized and read by everybody.” – 2 Corinthians 3:1-2 [TPT]

Heavenly Father, thank You for Your Spirit. Lord, thank You for moving within me from the inside out. Lord, create in me a clean heart. May both my words and my deeds point to You. Continue to carve into us the life anew that You planned long ago. In Jesus’ Name. Amen!