REJECTION IDENTIFIED (part 2)

From June 22, 2013


In the previous post, I made mention of REJECTION as a tare sown, bringing about discord.

REJECTION is the tare, the seed of discord sown that hinders love. Love is a fruit of the Spirit and CANNOT be obtained in the flesh. Our feelings, passions, desires, intellect, will, memory, experiences, etc., are a part of the soul. The heart (what we feel) and mind (what we think) are the functions of the soul.

discord:  lack of agreement or harmony, dissension, conflict

Peace is harmony, being in a place, a position of agreement with God. SIN is a hindrance to that harmony, and must be dealt with. REJECTION isn't the sin, but it is a tare that can potentially lead to REBELLION, which is defined as iniquity in the scriptures.


Look at  1 Samuel 15:22-24

22 And Samuel said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.

24 And Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned: for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.

REJECTION, I termed the INJURY, is the tare sown into our hearts, causing disharmony and conflict. It's a blow to the heart, rendering dysfunction. When the heart is not functioning in love, pure love, with what God intended, then it's actually working in opposition and creating a hostile situation.  The tare, just like a weed, is designed to choke the life out of the green, budding, flowering plant —  love —  hindering its ability to flow freely, to give and receive it in its pure form.

The enemy then brings an onslaught of INSULTS to that INJURY. How you ask? By using others who are broken, hurt and suffering. You ever notice that we attract what we are?

Some of the causes of this REJECTION may be associated with ABUSE (verbal, emotional, physical), BETRAYAL, MOLESTATION, ABANDONMENT, INFIDELITY, and the list goes on. What often happens is that we engage in repeated cycles of these things without even noticing or realizing it.

Here's an example: For a person who may have been physically abused, because they won't ever go through that again, they may not get involved with someone who hits them, but may attach themselves to a person or people who are abusive in other ways. Yet they can't figure out why they are still experiencing what they felt when they were physically abused.

We are blinded to the tare rooted deep within, and our inability to recognize it, sets us up for repeat offenses. This further prevents the proper operation and function of the heart to love, but reinforces the bondage on the soul. Because we fail to examine the root cause, we continue to make poor choices adding further damage or insult to this hidden injury.

We often treat the surface symptoms while the tare of REJECTION rooted within allows the enemy to act as a puppeteer pulling strings, hence causing the knee-jerk reactions. As a result, we often attempt to fulfill our own desires, often seeking pleasurable experiences in external (fleshly) validations to ease the pain caused by REJECTION. While at the same time opening ourselves up to more of the same, because we invite in the same types of people, places and things.

What are we seeking? Love, or some form of it, acceptance, usually of man, validation, worthiness, esteem, approval. We also have a need for it to be good enough, and to prove that we are good enough.   But to whom?

Now, we engage in PERFORMANCE-BASED love, thinking we need to earn from others, that which God has so freely given. The flip side of that is the controller who makes others jump through hoops to earn their love. Most often, however, after all of that work, we end up right back where we began... REJECTED or worse.

God created a whole world and fashioned us, His creation, after His image, according to His likeness. Even God created us to have fellowship, to love, to share the essence of Himself, and He desired our love in return.

I believe that because satan desired the worship that is only due God, he immediately attacked the very thing he is incapable of — LOVE!

How you say? Well let's revisit the garden. He seduced Eve (the part of us that is the soul, the place where our desires, affections, will. intellect, and passions reside), to rebel against God, to break covenant with God through disobedience.

When we REJECT God — we engage in DISOBEDIENCE! Repeat offenses without repentance lead to REBELLION. Knowing the right thing to do, but willfully doing what is wrong.

The binding contract of that covenant of love with God is His commandments, His commands. If you love Me, keep My commandments. Knowing what's right, yet doing wrong is a heart issue. Love doesn't demand, but it commands its own; hence is offered freely, free to give and free to receive.

A thorough study of  1Corinthians 13, lends to a better understanding of love, the beauty of love, the strength of love, the restorative and unfailing power of love.

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.

2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,

5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;

7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.

10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

13 And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

During this time of study and reflection, I began to think of the song by Stephanie Mills, entitled,  "I've Learned to Respect the Power of Love,"  so I looked up the lyrics. I'm not sure why these things come to me, but they fit into what God is revealing to me.

These are the verses:

I was a victim of my foolish thinking
Carelessly I've risked my love and my life
There's no self-pity, I admit I obliged
Overpowered by love I pretended to be blind

Faith has survived all the doubts I've summoned
My heart has stood all the failure and loss
Helpless I cannot further be driven,

I've learned to respect
The power of love

I was always afraid of being the one left hurt
Running away from the one thing
for which I've always yearned
I'm not ashamed to tell you
many nights I've tossed and I've turned

I've learned to respect
The power of love

I then revisited 1Samuel 8:7, when Israel rejected God, and I thought,  "Funny, how we reject God, yet He never rejects us."  He keeps right on loving us on purpose and with intention. Yes, it's intentional. God didn't hurt us, people did, and then most times, we went on and hurt ourselves and others.

Truth be told, God's way — OBEDIENCE —  in spite of how we feel, would have shielded us from harm. Why don't we trust Him? Is it because we ask, why did He let this happen to me? Ask Him.

I had a friend who once told me that love isn't give and take, but love is give and receive. I now find that to be absolutely true.

John 3:16  
For God so LOVED the world, that He GAVE His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him will not perish, but have everlasting life.

Just like with any gift, it is not until we receive it, and use it according to the purpose for which it was given, that the gift can be of any benefit to us.

Salvation is a FREE gift from God, and it cannot benefit us until we accept it, receive it. Do we really know how to accept His love. It's unconditional. He loves us so much that He gave it all, His very life for us. Once we receive the FREE gift, then we can work OUT our salvation, not work FOR it and begin to bear and produce the fruit of that love as we become like Him through the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit.

Loving like God means to love with intention, to love on purpose and His love will prevail. It will prevail inwardly, because it will root out everything that it is not, and outwardly, it will enhance our interaction with one another.

Look at Israel, a nation who rejected God, yet the name in itself means "God prevails." His love, His grace, His compassion, His mercy, His goodness... His essence  IS  His love.

Moses, in Exodus 34 asked to see God's glory. His glory is His splendor, His essence, magnificence, brightness, love. He didn't show Moses silver, gold, houses, cars, and other trinkets. He displayed the infallible attributes of Himself.

Exodus 34:6-7
And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.

Let God's love heal our hearts so we can love purely, love wholly, the no strings attached kind of love. It will require something of us, at least a willingness to let Him in and let Him remove all that hinders us.

Let us lay aside every weight and sin that so easily besets us an run with patience the race set before us. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.