WHEAT & TARES: REJECTION IDENTIFIED

From June 22, 2013.

I hope to share the revelation the Father gave me regarding the wheat and tares, separation and harvest. 

For the sake of this post,  I will attempt to elaborate on the tare identified as REJECTION.

I may touch upon some personal aspects of my life, with some hope that the transparency will be a blessing to someone else. Suggested reading is the Parable of the Four Soils in Matthew 13.

This particular day, I woke up with much complaint and discontentment. As I went to the Lord, I felt justified in my complaint, "Lord, why do I have to go through so much" — the whole spiel. I read my devotional and it spoke about thanking God for hardship, trouble and trials. I was not feeling that. No sir! As a result, I continued my conversation with the Lord and here is what He revealed to me.

What happened for many of us, very early on, was that the enemy sowed tares. The bible tells us this in Matthew 13:25.

As mentioned, the tare we will examine for the sake of this post is the culprit identified as REJECTION.

The seed of rejection planted and watered can bear fruit of RESENTMENT, DISAPPOINTMENT, and DISCONTENTMENT, which can also produce BITTERNESS and UNFORGIVENESS; and lead to REBELLION and ultimately ABANDONMENT, (i.e., abandonment of God and His purpose for our lives) — our DESTINY.

I was struggling that morning. I had great difficulty with the desires of my heart and them not being fulfilled. I was frustrated and slightly angry with God, because I couldn't understand why He gave us love, the desire to give it and to receive it, but only appeared to generate hurt and heartache, again and again.

NOTE: Reciprocal love is our desire, to love and be loved. Why was it withheld? Why was it so difficult to obtain, yet so desired?

A repeated cycle emerged from this confrontation. One that was evident as I was then reminded of particular scenarios in my life. Even as a child filled with love and the expectation of love and seeking validations of it, yet REJECTED in so many ways.

Many of us were reared in households where “I love you” was more implied rather than spoken and provision of food, clothing and shelter was the way love was expressed. We in turn learn by our experiences and emulate the examples presented to us.

This ongoing pattern of searching for love, acceptance, even validation persisted throughout my life and well into adulthood. I extended what I "believed" was love based on the pattern taught. I tried to do well by others and thought the same would  be returned. Yet, I entered into compromise and settled on so many occasions.  What was received in return wasn't love. The compromises and need for approval, acceptance, validation often yielded situations of abuse and misuse, and left behind a train wreck of emotions on this journey, on this quest.

NOTE: Love is truly the HEART of the matter. Every human being has an innate desire to love and be loved. That's the way we were created. Unfortunately, most often, we search for it without a true understanding of what love really entails, and we look for it in all the wrong places, in all the wrong people and in expendable things. To add to the complexity of this reality, most often those who nurtured us had similar issues.

Now, we all know that love isn't something that satan (the enemy) can comprehend. Yet, it is the very thing that empowers us and defeats him. I find it interesting that all of the great energy exhausted around outward demonstrations of power, at best, is wasted energy. Love and truth were the core principles demonstrated by our Savior, Yeshua. His ability, grace, to love unconditionally and get nothing in return; to give up His life, as a result of His great love for us, and still be rejected by us is the true definition of DIVINE LOVE. Yes, that's the kind of love that stretches us, that challenges us, but most of all, it will cause us to examine ourselves by a higher standard - the word of God.

In one of my sittings with the Lord, He told me that He allowed my heart to be broken so that He could reset it and then expand it's capacity to love. It made me think of a bodily limb that needed to be broken and reset in order for it to heal properly. What an analogy, but the heart, that unseen muscle is much more delicate, intricate, and complex.

I've observed how we are often quick to point out incoming offenses, (i.e. what was done to us), but fail to look at the four fingers pointing back at us. I'm not saying that people won't hurt one another nor am I implying that it is right to do so, but how much thought have we engaged in around those we've hurt along the way? Do we really treat others the way we want to be treated? Or do we want to be held to our good intentions while we hold others to their faults?

Love really commands looking beyond the fault and seeing the need. That's not a principle that the world teaches, but one that Christ demonstrated at the cross as a token of love to all of mankind. While we were yet sinners, He died for us -Romans 5:8. He knew every sin we would ever commit, and still went to the cross to save us. Now that's love.

God stretched my heart and admonished me to love His way. As a result, the tare or the culprit REJECTION was exposed and could be uprooted. This love that the Father insisted upon was even the catalyst for even further breakthrough. This is why I thought to share.

The bible reminds us not to despise God's chastening.

Proverbs 3:11-12
11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:
12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.

Let Him identify and uproot the seeds of discord, the tares planted by the enemy, so that we can be set FREE. Scripture again reminds us that if we continue in His word, then we are truly His disciples (disciplined ones) and we shall know the truth and the truth shall make us FREE - John 31-32. We also know that it is also true that whom the Son set's free is FREE indeed (John 8:36)!

Yes, It is painful. I repeat, IT IS PAINFUL, but we have to choose which pain we want to endure - the pain that leads to HEALING AND TOTAL SEPARATION from those things that bind us, pull on our heart strings and render us defenseless against the tugs, arrows and darts of the enemy, OR the pain that becomes a revolving door that we revisit time and time again - that same repeated cycle of hurt.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. Haven't most of us heard the saying, "If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got?"

After this initial revelation and chat with the Father, I put in some study time to get an even better understanding of what He was revealing to me:

Let's look at the word reject in the scriptures. The first mention is in 1Sam 8:7

reject - (H3988: ma'ac)
to spurn, to disappear, abhor, cast away, contemn, despise, disdain, loathe, melt away, refuse, reject, reprobate, utterly vile person.

1Samuel 8:7
And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.

This was an act of rebellion on the behalf of Israel, who rejected the love of God to govern, rule and reign over them. They wanted a king and wanted to emulate what they saw among the other nations, the very thing God warned against. He constantly instructed Israel not to desire nor adopt the ways of the heathen.

Now, let's examine love. Love is one of the fruit of the Spirit (of God, divine, supernatural).

Rejection can subtly poison the heart and keep us from love. Over the years, it caused me to be apprehensive and even guarded and defensive, especially after past experiences of it being rejected or mishandled. If we cut off love, we cut off God's ability to work freely in and through us. We are also hindered from bearing other fruit (see Galatians 5:22-23).

Here's one of those lightbulb moments. The reason for the blows to the heart is to corrupt love, to keep one searching but never finding it, and the failed attempts rendering damage to the heart. This can truly cause one to bitter and the heart hardened as a result of making empty investments. 

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control. There are nine in total (9 = FRUITFULNESS), but... the first and primary is love.

Revelation around numbers and order pays off here. One is the number of God, first and primary things, the beginning or origin. Love begins with God. God is love. We will see that evolve even more later in the post. Without love (ability to receive or give it) you cannot bear the other fruit, the remaining eight. Eight is the number of NEW BEGINNINGS, REGENERATION, CIRCUMCISION (of the heart). 

Within love itself resides so many other attributes; such as, forgiveness, grace, mercy, righteousness, justice, commitment, loyalty, dedication, and trustworthiness, just to list a few.

Next, I went to Websters Dictionary.

rejection (reject) to refuse to accept, consider, use, submit to refuse to hear, receive or admit, repel, to rebuff or WITHHOLD LOVE FROM; to throw out as useless or unsatisfactory.

WITHHOLD LOVE FROM is another device used by the enemy, and for many who have been deeply hurt, this becomes their way to control and guard themselves. Unfortunately, that backfires.

Futile attempts to always be in control, causes one to be controlled and builds up impenetrable walls of defense. This contributes to the deception that we have or can somehow fortify ourselves against hurt. That's not love, that's fear.

NOTE: Anyone who lives life on the defense will become offensive and easily offended.

REJECTION 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 functions of the soul.

If we continually live out of our bad experiences, memories and feelings, we will soon add much insult to the injury (REJECTION). It hinders our ability to even receive love. We are so focused on the past that we are inadequate to respond properly to love. We don't readily know how to receive it. Love is founded in truth, but because of our brokeness, we view truth as an offense, especially if it doesn't agree with our agenda.

The best the flesh can produce is LUST! Lust is the COUNTERFEIT, a corrupted form of love, a work (fruit) of the flesh.

WARNING: Without a deep cleansing of the heart, the soulish realm can interpret lust as love. The word tells us that the wheat and tares look alike. To the naked eye, they appear identical, but not so.

Again, only the Spirit can produce love, pure love, godly love. Love is divine. It is supernatural. It is from God, a heavenly gift.

This is getting pretty long. Please visit the continuation (REJECTION IDENTIFIED part 2).

God bless you all.