I recently read a book about rejection and its effects entitled, "The Ins and Out of Rejection" by Charles R. Solomon. Did you notice the plural tense of "Ins" and the singular tense of the word "Out"? The point is, there are many ins into rejection, but only one "out." The only way out of rejection is the cross of Christ. To die to our Self, to deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow Jesus - we must live life from the cross. But so often we want to try and get around the cross or de-emphasize the effect that our ongoing relationship to the cross of Christ is to have on our lives.
The truth is, the cross has never been a place where many people gather for fellowship, nor will it ever be. Those who embrace the cross and it’s teachings don’t think of themselves as having “arrived,” except at the bottom. The cross in the life of the believer involves brokenness and suffering, just as it did for Jesus.
Now, the essence of our identity as believers is found in the cross of Christ. The way from rejection to acceptance is by way of the cross. In fact, there is no such thing as an “end run” around the cross. None of us is greater than our Master, and we must all go the way of the cross if we’re to have victory in our Christian experience. Until we understand this, we will continue to resist the message that life must come out of death and victory comes out of defeat.
The experience of the cross is an on going process. We are all in the process of becoming in experience who we already are in Christ by position. And our identity comes out of Christ, through the cross and it’s there that we find our acceptance as Paul says in v.6, the last phrase “through which he hath made us accepted in the Beloved.”(KJV) Through the cross of Christ and the grace of God, He has made us accepted in Jesus Christ. But before we come to acceptance, lets look at:
I. Rejection and Its Effects
There’s one thing for certain, we all experience rejection to one extent or another and for one reason or another. For some rejection has been more open, obvious, aware what we call overt. Some actually heard their parents say that the children were not wanted or not loved. Then there’s a more subtle rejection that takes place where a parent or person doesn’t intend the rejection, we call this covert rejection.
By way of definition, rejection means “the absence of meaningful love.” Now, being rejected doesn’t mean there’s no love involved, but that for one reason or another, it’s not fulfilling or edifying love. It’s not meaningful, it’s not meeting the needs of the individual. When we’re not loved the way we need to be, we will feel a sense of rejection. Of course, God has created us with the God-given need to be loved and accepted and He’s the only One who can meet that need completely and meaningfully. So, we all do experience rejection to one extent or another. The result of rejection then us usually the impaired ability to give and receive love. So we pass on the rejection cycle to others for we are all impaired. We all live a self-centered life and that’s the root of the problem of which rejection is a symptom.
People feel rejection for many reasons such as overprotection, performance-based acceptance, the premature death of a parent, an extended hospital stay in infancy and even the realization that you were the opposite sex from what your parents wanted. Sometimes rejection is subtle, unintentional, unrecognized, unavoidable or even all of the above. I could go into all of these, but as an example I’ll deal with the overprotected child and how rejection stems from parents behavior in spoiling their child.
The overprotected child is not allowed to make decisions appropriate to his own age, so he doesn’t develop confidence in himself or in his decision-making ability. The parents are telling him by default that he’s not capable of making decisions. Deeming him-self inferior, he develops an inferiority complex. The parents love him so much that they do everything for him except allow him to become a person! Obviously this is unintentional and neither the parents nor the child realize what is happening.
The point is, we all experience rejection. And a rejected person will reject not only himself, but also others. The reason being, a person who has experienced the absence of meaningful love, can’t give and receive love meaningfully. The answer to rejection then is acceptance.
II. Acceptance Comes through Identity
Human acceptance will not heal the damaged emotions after rejection has done it’s dirty work. Of course, it does help and often it may be the only help available. However, the experience of being accepted in Jesus Christ is the only true curative for the effects of rejection in our lives.
Therefore we need to understand the importance of identity. It’s important because what a person sees as his identity, or the identity he would like to make work for himself will determine where one looks for acceptance. Most believers live with an identity that’s been assigned to them - either positive or negative, depending on the extent of rejection - or with an identity we’ve built for ourselves. We may build it on things, money, people, power, and accomplishments or the lack of them. But identity based on temporal things will be subject to change. There’s a difference in what we are as a result of our human resources and what we are through the Holy Spirit’s power.
In the flesh, our natural resources, we’ve been programmed in certain directions by the teaching and experiences we’ve had. Some people are programmed so that their identity is fulfilled through accumulation of money and things. Others are programmed toward success in business or some other achievements. Some are even programmed toward religious pursuits for the achieving of acceptance and identity. For the believer, all of these are false and unsatisfactory identities. Our true identity is based on who we are in Christ.
So the problem is, many people are living out of the wrong identity. The answer to the problem lies in exchanging the identity that is based on our personal history and experience, for our perfect identity in Jesus Christ. That transaction truly takes a miracle, but it’s the kind of miracle that the Holy Spirit majors in. The Holy Spirit doesn’t enter our lives to patch up our old identities, but to put into effect our true identity as a redeemed child of God.
Look ahead in Ephesians 1:17-20 to see Paul’s description of this work of the Holy Spirit in us. . . You see, the same power God used in raising Jesus from the dead is operative in us, as we place our faith in what was accomplished through Christ’s resurrection. Again, Paul wrote in Romans 5:10, “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” Our identity is based on who we are in Christ, and it’s to be claimed by faith, not by works, ours or anybody else’s. We shed the human achieved identity for the spiritual identity of the Christ-life.
In order to do that we must first embrace our own old identity and as Jesus said, “if any man will come after me, let him deny himself . . . “ We must embrace it and deny it, then by faith accept our spiritual identity in Jesus Christ. The analogy is given, for purposes of illustrating, of a fifteen year old, unmarried and pregnant girl. Abortion is not an option and the girl has made the decision to give the baby up for adoption. Should she see the baby prior to giving it up or not. One might suggest it would be easier to have the baby and leave the hospital without have seen him and avoid the trauma of separation. That would seem easier, but would she have faced the reality of the situation?
Did you ever try to give away something you never had? Without seeing the baby, there’s a sense of unreality about the situation. Of course, she’s carried the baby in her womb, but there’s a difference between that and holding the baby and owning him. Once the young mother has held the baby and owned and loved him for a day or so, and then given him to the adoptive parents, the reality hits with full force. Then it’s possible to go through the grief process, the separation anxiety or whatever sense of loss the mother experiences.
My point is, when it comes to our humanly achieved identity, each of us needs to ask the question, “Have I owned my ‘baby,’ or is there still a sense of unreality about the identity out of which I live?” For us to accept our new identity in Jesus Christ, each of us must define our humanly achieved or fleshly, worldly identity and look it squarely to understand what we must lose if we are to live out of our true identity in the Lord Jesus Christ. We must “lose our baby,” which has been in the formation stage for a lifetime, if we’re to know the joy and blessing of our new identity as accepted and dearly loved children of God in Christ.
I’ve “owned my baby,” the identity I’ve held of positive performance-based acceptance, of being a good pastor, of performing well as the preacher and receiving the acceptance I get from “a job well done” or “a great sermon,” that handshake of affirmation at the back door, of pleasing other people which is all a part of my past identity. I own it and I’ve given it up and I receive the identity of Jesus Christ, I am who I am in Christ and I am what the Bible says I am. I am totally, completely, unconditionally, accepted in the Beloved! Would you accept your acceptance now?
(Most of this message came from the study of Chapter 1 of the "Handbook To Happiness" by Charles R. Solomon)
