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Reject
Rejection Romans 5:8
Everyone has had painful experiences of
feeling of rejected. It may come in many different forms. An employer that
you can never please, a spouse that never shows love, a childhood experience
from when a parent's emotions reached their boiling point, a seemingly
harmless spoken word, a painful mistake that has brought a lifetime feeling
of failure, or even the unexpected death of a parent can lead to feelings of
rejection. We can not avoid rejection in life because we can not control how
people think about us. Some will love us and some will reject us for no
apparent reason. Rejection can not hurt us if we refuse to allow it to drag
us into its cold caves and trust in God.
Satan loves to drown our lives with the bitterness of
rejection. He does not want you to feel unconditionally loved by God. He will
do his best to get you to manipulate and control others. He wants you to fear
the opinions of other, have a critical spirit, be domineering, be angry, and
to have an over-emphasis sensual appearances.
Jesus suffered the ultimate form of rejection when He died
on the cross. He cried out, "My God, My God, why has
thou forsaken me?" Everywhere Jesus went he faced rejection. He was spat
on, threatened, jeered, left alone and finally put to death even though His
life was a sacrificial offering of unconditional love and forgiveness. Mans
view of Him never altered His focus. The best way to reject rejection is to
understand that God loves you enough to pay your sin debt and die on the
cross for you. Your worth to God is not determined by what other people say
about you. When your joy is dependent on what other people say about you, you
are setting yourself up for Satan's cold painful poison that controls your
attitudes, actions, and relationship with God. You need to focus on what
God's word says about you and your position in His family, not on what others
have said or done. You are a royal priesthood, a child of God, an ambassador
for Christ, and loved of God. Nothing can change that which His word
declares. Jesus sent us the comforter, the Holy Spirit, to be with us in
every situation. Therefore; He has prepared a way for us to always sense His
presence. You hold a valued place in the family of God. God has personally
chosen you (John 3:16). He promises to be your strength (Phil.4:13), your
sufficiency (IICor.12:9), and your redeemer (Is.54:5). Forgive those who
disappointed you, cling to Gods word that He unconditionally love you, change your behavior as you grow in grace, and
reject rejection.
Guilt I John 2:12
Jonathan had prayed many times before
for the Lord to forgive him of that one besetting sin, but he just did not
feel forgiven. Have you ever had those feelings of guilt and
self-condemnation? Satan will often attack us with those feelings of guilt.
His plan is to accuse the brethren and barrage them with a never ending
feeling of guilt, until you are held back from becoming all that God has
planned for you. "You've failed." "You're not qualified."
"You've missed the mark in the past and you can't meet their
expectations." "God can't use you, you've disappointed to many
people." False guilt is not from God. It is Satans number one method of
deception. He weaves a web of deception and guilt until we reject God's love
and forgiveness. We feel confused, frustrated, and overcome by emotions of
punishment, rejection, and isolation.
In the book, A Doctor's Casebook in the Light of the
Bible, by Dr. Paul Tournier wrote that people
will sometimes experience: "False guilt which comes as result of
judgments and suggestions of men. 'True guilt' is
that which results from divine judgment." God uses the conviction of the
Holy Spirit to alert us of our wrong actions of gossip, jealousy, deception,
immoral behavior, or any thing else that violates God's best for our lives.
The Holy Spirit brings us to our knees in repentance before God's throne of
grace to experience His forgiveness. Satan does not want us to know God's
forgiveness and strength. He wants us to carry huge burdens of unrealistic
guilt for our past sins. People who have stepped across God's boundary of
sexual purity are prime candidates of feeling that God can not forgive them
and that their fellowship can never be repaired with God.
The first step to the end of Satan's never ending messages
of false guilt is to be sure you have really trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as
your personal Savior. His sacrificial death on the cross at Calvary
paid your sin debt in full forever (John 6:40). Therefore; if Jesus paid your
sin debt and you are justified by His blood (Rom.5:9) you are no longer
guilty. Secondly, we must trust His Word, that once He extends His arm of
forgiveness, nothing can erase His seal that you are His child. Nothing can
change God's Word when He says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness
(I John 1:9)." You may say, "I don't deserve to be forgiven."
None of us do. That is when God in His unmerited favor declares us justified
by His blood. We are just as if we had never sinned when God forgiveness is
applied. The final step is to post a guard at your hearts door declaring to
Satan that you are under new management since Jesus came into your
hear. He has no right to accuse you since the blood of Christ is proof of the
debt payment of your sin.
Disappointed, but not Angry Eph. 4:26-32
The little boy had not intended to
make his mother angry, but he was not having a good day remembering all that
his mother had told him not to do. All he did was to touch his sister this
time, but mother has had enough and her spirit was its boiling point. Now she
was out of control.
Anger is the most dangerous and potentially the most
destructive of our souls spirit. Anger
is almost always been the predecessor of the strongest and rawest of sins.
Left unchecked anger is the source of outward violence and the root of all
inward bitterness. How we deal with anger will determine its affect upon us.
Jesus experienced anger when He cleansed the temple, but he did not succumb
to sin. We can all take Biblical steps to confess our anger to God and
experience His peace. Giving someone a piece of your mind only allows self
interest to arise above self respect. Even if you are right, God resists the
proud and gives grace to humble. Whenever your anger is the vicious explosive
type or the quiet, vindictive, resentful type Satan will always score with
division, depression, and destruction of your testimony. Has resentment
toward another grabbed your emotions into a cold damp cave? Have you been
honest with God and yourself about your feelings. It
is impossible to hide your emotions from an omniscient God. It is not wrong
to be disappointed or have righteous indignation ,
but anger that is out of control is detrimental to your health as well as
sinful and rottenness to your spirit. Do not try to hide under a superficial
layer of Christianity, but confess your anger to God. Open the channels of
communication with your Heavenly Father. Identify the source
of your hurts and anger. Perhaps you are angry at your spouse, someone at work,
or even you children. It is your choice to be angry. No one can make you
surrender your spirit to a source outside the Holy Spirit. Choose to quickly
surrender to the power of the Holy Spirit and to forgive that someone who has
disappointed you. There is no excuse for not having self-control when the God
who controls heaven and earth lives within you to make you conformed to
Himself. We can all come to God in prayer and then say something like,
"Bob, I am disappointed about this problem. Can we talk about it?"
Clear-headed communications and loving confrontation can
express our disappointments far better than the heated emotions of anger.
Alone and
Lonely! Joshua 1:5-9
It was the holidays again when everyone
is supposed to be filled with happiness and cheer. This year was different
from any other holiday for grandma Selina. She was
alone. The last of her children had moved away to live in a distant state.
Her husband had died years ago in an accident. As she sat glassy eyed looking
at the wall in her room the pressures of her soul was clearly seen on the
countenance of her face. She was alone for the first time in her life.
Loneliness wears many different faces and is preceded by
many different circumstances. Seasons of numbing loneliness of soul can grip
us while we in a large crowd as well as when we are in protracted periods of
isolation. There are no prefabricated steps that draw us into the cold cave
of loneliness. It may be the untimely death of a loved one, the betrayal of
someone dear, a pink slip at the office, the reality of a terminal illness,
or spending the holidays by yourself. One thing is
for sure, there is a lot pain griping the soul during those seasons of
loneliness.
God understands how you feel. The book of Hebrews tells us
that we do not have a high priest which cannot be touched with the feelings
of our infirmities. Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are. Isaiah
53:3 says that Jesus was "despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief...." Do not think for one moment that Jesus
has forgotten you in your circumstances. He was alone on many occasions. His
disciples forsook Him and slept while He prayed alone. When he hung on the
cross, He uttered those horrible words; "My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me?"(Mt.27:46). Some of the most comforting truths during our
seasons of loneliness is that we have a Savior who
understands our emotions and that He will never leave us nor forsake us.
Brokenness may be in our soul, sin may be at our door, our finances may be in
shambles, and the painful giant of despair may be trying to drag us into his
cold lonely den, but Jesus our loving Savior is always there to help us with
His warm, tender hands . As a Christian, do despise those
painful times of loneliness, but recognize that you have a friend in Jesus
and that you are His child by adoption. Spend much time in pray with Him.
Then God can use those times of loneliness to forge a new intimacy with Him
that will sustain us even in the most painful times of our soul.
Voting to close
the Church Malachi 3:8-11
Every year Americans are given an opportunity to vote
who their government representatives will be. Unfortunately only a small
number exercise that privilege to vote. Those who refuse to vote will
eventually be governed by their own indifference of exercising that patriotic
privilege. In a similar manner, those who refuse to support their local
church will some day loose the joy of having a local church. If you refuse to
support your local church you are voting to close its doors.
When you refuse to support your church you are voting to
close the open Bible that has been given to us by years of struggle and by
the blood of the martyrs who died that we might have it to read.
When you refuse to support your church you are voting for
your pastor to stop preaching the glorious truths of the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. You are also voting to stop the voices of children in their Sunday
school classes and the voices of the choir as they sing praises to God.
Every missionary supported by your church, every hospital
dispensary on the foreign field, every missionary home, and every Bible
college will be voted to cease when you refuse to support
your church. Every Christian youth, every bus ministry, every home mission project, and every influence for good and right
and for truth in your community will be voted to be curtailed and finally
stopped when you refuse to support your church.
The darkness of superstition, the degrading influence of
sin, the blight of ignorance and the curse of selfish greed will continue to
remain in the heart of some lost soul when you refuse to support your church.
All this and more too; will come about because you carelessly,
thoughtlessly, lazily, indifferently, voted to close the church.
God's provision for the local church is, "Bring
ye (people) all the tithe(i.e percentage) into
the storehouse(i.e. place), that there may be meat in mine house (i.e.
provision), and prove me now herewith (i.e. proof), ...and pour
you out a blessing , that there shall not be room enough to receive it (i.e.
principle).
Vote to keep your church open this Sunday!
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