Rejection Denied.
Romans 15:7TPT
Rejection is one of the most painful experiences known to mankind.
I can remember my first year in High School/9th grade. I was going by the lunchroom when a girl motioned for me to come close to the window. When I did, she shouted, “You’re ugly!”
The words seemed to devastate me at the time, and I’ve not forgot them.
So just what is rejection? For a child, it could be another child not sharing. -For a teen, feelings of not fitting in. Constant peer pressure. -For an adult, rejection might come by prejudice, race, religion, rejection comes with many faces.
Rejection makes its victim feel less-than, never measuring up.
There are literally thousands of ways rejection can come.
However, there is only one way for rejection to leave.
Acts 10:38NKJV how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
And then we remember, Hebrews 13:8NKJV Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
Rejection enters to stay, rejection can become a way of life. Here’s some words that have a lot in common with rejection, inferiority, low self-worth, seclusion feels safer than feeling rejection over and over again. -We hide behind rejection.
Again, Rejection enters to stay. Feelings of less-than become the way of life.
In, Romans 15:1-6, the caption of my Bible reads, Bear One Another’s Burdens.
And then comes this evenings text, Romans 15:7TPT “You will bring God glory when you accept and welcome one another as partners, just as the Anointed One has fully accepted you and received you as his partner.”
When I (You), bear each others burdens, that’s heavy, That’s responsibility. Then you shall know/live, Romans 15:7NKJV Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God.
The apostle Paul states, we are to accept one another. Why? Jesus Christ accepted you.
-And when you learn this simple truth you bring praise to God.
I want to remind you that unconditional love and acceptance is one of the most basic needs of all humanity. ~Thus Love, Prayer and Grace.
From very early on, children strive for our acceptance, and the approval of significant others in their lives.
Things like, “Do you like my picture, mommy?” “Did I play well, Daddy?”
The social system in which most of us were raised gave us the impression that if we appeared good, performed well, or had a certain amount of social status, we would finally be some body. Class reunions can be reminders of rejection.
Here’s a fact, Without Jesus, being the center of your life, whatever pinnacle of self identity we are able to achieve eventually crumbles under the pressure of rejection, or the criticism of self condemnation.
Cold hard fact- Without Jesus being centerfold eventually nothing makes sense! P.H
Revelation 3:20TPT “Behold, I’m standing at the door, knocking. If your heart is open to hear my voice and you open the door within, I will come in to you and feast with you, and you will feast with me.”
This feasting is continual/ongoing. Jesus states, “I will come and feast with you, and you will feast with Me.”
-Rejection is the opposite of feasting. Rejection cast down, rejection projects, it vomits, rejection throws in the towel. Rejection- retreats.
Love is a verb, it’s an action word. John 3:16AMP ““For God so [greatly] loved and dearly prized the world, that He [even] gave His [One and] only begotten Son, so that whoever believes and trusts in Him [as Savior] shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
This I’m sure of, You can never have that love, but God did for you. You can never earn God’s love, but he earned it for you.
You might face rejection from time to time, but that’s not who you are. -You are a child of the king.
Nevertheless, if you choose to live in/with rejection, -it’s not who you are, because what you have forgotten is, Jesus was rejected for your sake.
We cannot do anything to qualify for unconditional and voluntary love. We labor under the faults assumption, that if we live perfectly, everybody will except us, while there was one who lived his life perfectly, and everybody rejected him.
Isaiah 53:1-12NLT Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. 7 He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth. 8 Unjustly condemned, he was led away. No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people. 9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone.?But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave. 10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. 11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. 12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.
Do you know who you are in Jesus Christ? I can tell you who you are not, you’re not a product of your past, but you are a product of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Wendell P. Loveless, 1892–1987 sung a wonder sang called, Accepted In the Beloved:
In the beloved excepted am I, risen, ascended, and seated on high, saved from all sin through his infinite grace, with the redeemed ones, accorded a place. In the beloved, God’s marvelous Grace calls me to dwell in this wonderful place, God sees my Savior, and then he sees me in the beloved, excepted and free.
Billy Graham~ Gods unconditional love is foundational for all future growth.
You don’t have to 'do things’ so that someday God will except you. We are accepted by God, completely as we are. Our actions and works should be in response to God‘s love for us, not an attempt to earn his favor.
Romans 15:7AMP “Therefore, [continue to] accept and welcome one another, just as Christ has accepted and welcomed us to the glory of [our great] God.”
Our need for acceptance and belonging are legitimate needs, they are God-given. However, again, if we are going to meet them independent of God, we are doomed to reap the dissatisfaction the self-life brings. P.H
1 Peter 2:1-3NLT “So get rid of all evil behavior. Be done with all deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, and all unkind speech. 2 Like newborn babies, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you will grow into a full experience of salvation. Cry out for this nourishment, 3 now that you have had a taste of the Lord’s kindness.”
Apart from Jesus Christ, my inner man’s cravings are unquenchable.
Galatians 5:17ESV the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
The Christian is to be ‘like a newborn baby,’ who knows nothing about guile, hypocrisy, and envy.
In reality 1 Peter 1, teaches, we are like babies, we are newborn in Christ, and we are to long for the pure milk of the word, because it is there we discover our true identity.
Colossians 2:10NKJV and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
Because of my stance with Jesus Christ, I have been made complete. P.H
Colossians 2:10TPT And our own completeness is now found in him. We are completely filled with God as Christ’s fullness overflows within us. He is the Head of every kingdom and authority in the universe!
Upon accepting your full identity in Jesus Christ, in return, you are rejecting, rejection.
Benediction- Dear heavenly father, I pray that you would open my eyes so that I may know, and personally receive your unconditional love and acceptance. I renounce the lies of Satan that question your love and insist, I must earn your love and approval. I choose to believe that I am excepted in Jesus Christ. I ask for your grace to sustain me as I face, the rejection of mankind, and may you enable me to stand against the peer pressure that trips me up to compromise.
In the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
