From
an interview by Timothy Dalrymple with Tullian Tchvidjian regarding approval and acceptance.
When you realize that you already possess everything you need in
Christ, you recognize that you don’t actually need anything from
anybody. Everything you need, you already have in Christ — you don’t
need anything more, so now you can now spend your life giving yourself
away. That invests your life as a leader with unbounded courage.
Now,
I can walk into a meeting to announce an important decision and not be
worried that some in the room might not like it, and fight against it. I
can live my life with unfettered sacrifice because I don’t need to
win. I’m free to lose, and that’s something leaders face all the time.
So much of their own sense of value and worth and identity is wrapped
up in success as the world defines it.
But when you realize that
because Jesus won for me, I’m free to lose, because Jesus succeeded for
me I’m free to fail, that makes you a powerful leader. You can live
your life with reckless abandon, realizing on the one hand that, like
Paul said, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Everything I need I
already have. There is nothing anyone can strip away from me that I
actually need. I’m free to be unpopular, free to make tough decisions,
free to stand on principle and do what’s right even if people will
resist it.
It changed me as a leader. I have more courage. I’m
able to lead more boldly. I’m able to lose and not have to walk out of a
meeting getting my way. I can be sacrificial. I can give myself away,
because all I need is Christ. I don’t need anything else. I’m now
free to give everything I have without needing anything in return. I
can love those who hate me, I can turn the other cheek when I’m slapped
in the face, because my dignity and my sense of value is not wrapped up
in what I have in this person or this project. It’s wrapped up in Jesus.
That changes everything.
BTW, I highly recommend Tullian's book
Jesus + Nothing = Everything.
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