Holiness = Progress in obedience happens only when our hearts realize that God’s love for us does not depend on our progress in obedience.
Approval = You are already qualified. You don’t have to make the grade on your own or seek more approval from anyone. In Christ, you’re in! You’re accepted, affirmed, & validated. This also includes an inheritance that can never diminish, or disappear or be stripped away. You will be inheriting the new heavens and the new earth!
Power-Recognition-Fame = You are one of the saints in light. You’ve been united to Christ. You will always have his name, his presence, his character, and his reputation overshadowing and filling all that you are in your inmost being. Because Jesus was Someone (God of the Universe, God of Creation, God of Salvation and you are in him!), you’re free to be no one.
Security = You have been liberated out of darkness’s grip and transported into the kingdom of Jesus. You now are, and forever will be, safe and sound in Jesus-all because of what he long ago accomplished for you by his perfect obedience to God’s law for you and by his death on the cross for you.
– Jesus + Nothing = Everything by Tullian Tchividjian
Messy Christians 
If we could get this into the marrow of our bones, how much less time we would waste striving for worldly recognition, security and approval. Yet, because we are as sheep — herd animals — the need for acceptance of our peers runs strong. We live in this endless tug between the life of the spirit vs. life of the flesh. Thank God for His infinite mercy and patience with us!