Book Title: Search for Significance: Seeing your true worth through God’s eyes.
Book Author: Robert McGee
Publisher Name: W Publishing Group
Year of Publishing: 1998
Number of Pages: 337
Search for Significance by Robert McGee is well organized and developed. It begins by identifying the problem, “…we…seek our security and purpose from worldly sources: our goals, personal success, status, beauty, wealth, and the approval of others.” (p. ix)
Everybody wants to be recognized or needs approval in one way or the other and as a result of seeking this approval, we miss the process, instead of looking unto God for the first approval, we look unto man and the result leads to disappointment.
We don’t realize how destructive this is because we sometimes transfer the disappointment to those around us realizing that we hurt them but we just want them to accept us like that and a lot of people might not even know about their wounds because they refuse to turn on the light of objectivity which can only be done through the Holy Spirit.
Some of us say things to be appreciated, develop defense methods in order to block pain, be compulsive perfectionists, attack people who hurt us, punishing ourselves after failure all in the name of gaining approval or searching for our significance in humans.
We need to know that we are significant to God, the price he paid on the cross is too much to calculate to the extent that he keeps track of the hair on our heads. What kind of significance are we then looking for when everything has been paid for? We must learn to stop proving ourselves to others.
Life itself is a series of problems that act as obstacles to our search for significance that is why we must put on our whole armor because we live in warfare that can lower our self-esteem.
Many of us have limited ourselves to what others say about us without finding the truth about ourselves through God, our true value is based on what God says, not the approval of others.
Some of us are perfectionists, we see nothing wrong in compulsion which later leads to despair which we see as a reflection of our worthlessness, we feel we need to meet certain standards to feel good about ourselves. God’s answer to this is justification.
The fear of being rejected by others makes some of us agree to everything people say to us even when we don’t like them, we are so much dependent on others. God’s answer to our fear of rejection is reconciliation, his love and acceptance aren’t based on our performance.
A lot of us might think that those who fail including ourselves are unworthy of love and deserve to be punished but we deserve all the love we can get which is only possible through Jesus Christ. His answer to our fear of punishment is propitiation, he took upon himself all our punishment so why do we need to be punished again.
We might even tell ourselves “I am what I am, I cannot change, I am hopeless” this kind of belief projects a poor self-concept, we are so so ashamed of ourselves which leads to negative opinions about our self-worth. God’s answer to our feeling of shame is regeneration, he imparts new life into us which reflects our values in Christ.
The Holy Spirit is the source of our change, the father sent him to us as our comforter, helper, teacher… He alone can turn on the light of objectivity and the cross is the basis of our spiritual growth.
No matter how grievous our sin might be, the feeling of guilt can’t take it away, guilt is not a way of life, Christ has freed us, there is no condemnation anymore since we are in Christ Jesus.
Renewing our mind is more than self-talk, it is not based on our performance, we need to be in agreement with God to allow him to have his way in our lives.
In all our Search for Significance, let us learn to seek and know Christ first, our significance is only based on him.
