It’s Okay If You Are Not Accepted By Everyone

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3sbSlnqKYl1kJ7COeTSgGL?si=WOtDOV57QO2Q3Q5Y0WblKw

Hi and welcome to the ”Woman, Where Is Your Confidence?” podcast.

My name is Michele Bowman, your host and woman of God exposing lies women believe and empowering you with God’s Truth.

On this first episode I want to introduce myself and explain why I am so passionate about this message.

I am a wife to Rick. We have five grown children and ten grandchildren.

But most importantly I am a child of God. What does that mean? It means I have accepted salvation through what Jesus did on the cross for my sins. I am now in the family of God.

As women we are bombarded our whole lives with lies from people we never meet.

Yet we believe these lies.

We see the world‘s standard of beauty, success, and acceptance and are told this is how we should look, live, and act.

At fifty-five years old I have believed many of those lies throughout the years.

We don’t have to get a false confidence from the opinions of others.

We can find freedom and walk in godly confidence.

The only thing that is constant in this world is everything is always changing.

God’s power and love will never change, for that you can be sure.

Sis I want to encourage you to stop measuring your worth from the acceptance of others.

Whether you realize it or not, many of the ways you try to be accepted by other humans is not giving you true godly confidence.

On this show we will talk about areas of our life we have struggled with a false confidence and our insecurities because we were so concerned with what others thought instead of walking in godly confidence.

I will warn you now that there might be things we say on here that make you feel uncomfortable because it hits too close to home.

If you are looking for a watered down feel good podcast, this one’s not for you. But if you want to be encouraged by real women living for God then sit back and enjoy the show.

Let’s dive in today with the struggle of acceptance.

We all want to be accepted by others. We want to feel like we belong. Here‘s the real truth. Not everyone is going to like you, and it’s okay.

We all have different personalities and beliefs. When you mention God, most people are alright with that.

But when you say the name of Jesus, everything changes. Don’t be surprised or let it scare you. We need to speak about Jesus now more than ever before.

As a follower of Jesus Christ we should not be surprised when people don’t accept us.

Jesus was not accepted by everyone and He warned the disciples they would not be either.

In John 15:18-19 Jesus said:

If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love it‘s own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Whether it’s in person or on social media, it’s easy for us to get caught up in who accepts us and who doesn’t.

Do you remember back in High school what it was like?

Let me be honest right here. I did not like High school.

My biggest concentration was focusing on being accepted and making friends.

I thought wearing the right clothes would magically make me popular. That was a lie. I actually kept a notebook from the first day of my freshman year with a record of what I wore to school each day.

I had to make sure I didn’t have any repeats in the same week, most of the time two to three weeks. I made sure I wore all designer clothing. Everything I wore had to come from the mall.

Where did I get that belief? From a magazine. Teen magazine, anybody remember Teen magazine? That’s how I based whether I would be accepted from what those models wore in the magazines. It said this is the Back to School clothing you need to be a hit and I believed that lie.

There are many women that believe that lie today that they have to dress and look a certain way.

Did it help me become any more accepted because I wore someone’s name on my jeans?

No, not really.

Here‘s what I want to remind you of today:

If you are clothed in the righteousness of Christ you may not be popular with the so called “in crowd“, but who cares.

I would rather stand with God and be judged by the world, than stand with the world and be judged by God.

This is your reminder to keep speaking Truth and do what God has called you to do.

It‘s not your job to worry about who is going to accept you. Let God bring the people He has for you.

My 3 tips for this week are:

1- Cultivate the healthy relationships you have, but never compromise.

2- Be willing to make new friends, but always be yourself.

3- Never ever water down who you are as a woman of God to be accepted by someone else.

I want to leave you with this scripture affirmation.

I am loved

1st John 4:10

In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son to be the propitiation for our sins.

I am loved

You are loved

He loved us when we were wretched

That‘s what I want you to know. He loves you.

Michele