Brothers and Sisters,
I meet with a group of men on Thursday mornings for fellowship and the subject of rejection came up and I want to do a quick piece on Rejection. I have yet to run into someone who does not have rejection in their life and most of the time suffer with it instead of looking to God for healing and deliverance.
Rejection - to refuse to accept, consider, submit to, take for some purpose, or use
The will to live can get you through sickness, but no one can live with a broken spirit. Proverbs 18:14 (NCV)
The Word of God tells us we are loved, adopted and accepted, but rejection has an assignment to steal those truths away from us. We all know the deep sting of rejection, because we are all born with an innate longing for love and acceptance. The effects of agreeing with rejection can be physically and psychologically devastating.
WHAT MAKES REJECTION A SIN
Accepting rejection (real or imagined) disagrees with who God says we are. It places man’s acceptance as more important than God’s and you are telling God that you don’t believe Him when He said that you are worthy. You are saying to God that you would rather believe what other people are thinking of me.
Rejection will lead us on a desperate search, striving for the love that will complete us. This love cannot be found in people, places or things, but only in God.
That is, in Christ, he chose us before the world was made so that we would be his holy people—people without blame before him. Because of his love, God had already decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. That was what he wanted and what pleased him, Ephesians 1:4-5 (NCV)
Believe that God loves you more than anyone can love you and he will not reject you.
Blessings to you,
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Grace and Forgiveness
To help you understand grace, Hebrews says: Be careful that no one fails to receive God's grace and begins to cause trouble among you. Hebrews 12:15 (NCV)What does someone failing of the grace of God mean? Grace is God’s divine influence on the human heart.
We have been taught to forgive our brother. You may be exposed to someone who knows he should forgive, but all of a sudden he decides to have bitterness and un-forgiveness towards you. In that moment, that person “fails to receive God's grace” because grace is not a license to sin. Do we sin more that grace might more abound? God forbid.
So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us even more grace? No! We died to our old sinful lives, so how can we continue living with sin? Hebrews 6:1-2 (NCV)
So how does a person fail to receive God's grace? Some teach grace as a covering for sin. No, grace does not cover sin. The cross covers sin. Grace makes it possible for us to repent now because God has taught us right from wrong. What grace does first is teach us. Grace makes it possible to recognize sin and repent for our servitude to it.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by what? The Word of God. So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17 (NKJV). God’s divine influence on the human heart comes through teaching, reading the Word, and the confirmation of the Holy Spirit. So when someone knows that they should forgive yet they do not, they have fallen short of the glory of God. They have failed of the grace because now grace is not working since they forgot what it said. (Hebrews 12:15). It could be someone else or it could be you.
When someone else forgets to be kind to you, and they reject you, then that kingdom is trying to get you to repay evil with evil. You know the thoughts that come and they come very quickly. “How dare they say that to me? I am going to get even.” In this war of repaying evil with evil, it is not good because you will lose. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all. 1 Thessalonians 5:15 (NKJV)
So, we are looking “diligently” (Hebrews 12:15 KJV) lest any root of bitterness springs up in us. That root of bitterness could even be within you. You feel it. You think it in your mind, but you feel it in your belly.
When you have forgiven that person and you have been forgiven, and that spirit of bitterness has been removed from you, can you remember what they said or did to you? Yes, you can remember because that is what your memory does, but you no longer feel that high octane ping in your inner parts. That means the sin that dwelt within is no longer teaching you. Your mind may remember, but it is okay because the Word of God is strong in you now. The law of God is there.
You are to forgive your brother how many times? Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven Matthew 18:22 (NKJV). Forgive them and release them every minute of the day. His teaching will help you forgive other people. This teaching will help you to forgive yourself, because it was not you that did it or them that did it to you. It was the sin that lives within. In Romans 7, Paul struggled with this very thing, the sin within.
15 I do not understand the things I do. I do not do what I want to do, and I do the things I hate. 16 And if I do not want to do the hated things I do, that means I agree that the law is good. 17 But I am not really the one who is doing these hated things; it is sin living in me that does them.18 Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is earthly and sinful. I want to do the things that are good, but I do not do them. 19 I do not do the good things I want to do, but I do the bad things I do not want to do. 20 So if I do things I do not want to do, then I am not the one doing them. It is sin living in me that does those things. 21 So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. 22 In my mind, I am happy with God's law. 23 But I see another law working in my body, which makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and it makes me its prisoner. 24 What a miserable man I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? 25 I thank God for saving me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my mind I am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin Romans 7:15-25 (NCV).
Paul understood his shortcomings. We must understand the shortcomings of ourselves and others. We must separate the person from the sin and understand what the enemy is trying to do within us.
Grace is not an excuse to sin. It is by His grace that we are saved. As part of our salvation, we have an obligation to read the Word of God so sanctification can be unto God. Jesus had a lot to say about sanctification in the Book of John, chapter 17 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,” (John 17:16) and this is before His request: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth” (V. 17). Sanctification is a state of separation unto God; all believers enter into this state when they are born of God: “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption”(1 Corinthians 1:30). This is a once-for-ever separation, eternally unto God. It is an intricate part of our salvation, our connection with Christ (By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Hebrews 10:10).
AMEN!
Tony Sanchez
Blessings to you,
We have been taught to forgive our brother. You may be exposed to someone who knows he should forgive, but all of a sudden he decides to have bitterness and un-forgiveness towards you. In that moment, that person “fails to receive God's grace” because grace is not a license to sin. Do we sin more that grace might more abound? God forbid.
So do you think we should continue sinning so that God will give us even more grace? No! We died to our old sinful lives, so how can we continue living with sin? Hebrews 6:1-2 (NCV)
So how does a person fail to receive God's grace? Some teach grace as a covering for sin. No, grace does not cover sin. The cross covers sin. Grace makes it possible for us to repent now because God has taught us right from wrong. What grace does first is teach us. Grace makes it possible to recognize sin and repent for our servitude to it.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by what? The Word of God. So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10:17 (NKJV). God’s divine influence on the human heart comes through teaching, reading the Word, and the confirmation of the Holy Spirit. So when someone knows that they should forgive yet they do not, they have fallen short of the glory of God. They have failed of the grace because now grace is not working since they forgot what it said. (Hebrews 12:15). It could be someone else or it could be you.
When someone else forgets to be kind to you, and they reject you, then that kingdom is trying to get you to repay evil with evil. You know the thoughts that come and they come very quickly. “How dare they say that to me? I am going to get even.” In this war of repaying evil with evil, it is not good because you will lose. See that no one renders evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good both for yourselves and for all. 1 Thessalonians 5:15 (NKJV)
So, we are looking “diligently” (Hebrews 12:15 KJV) lest any root of bitterness springs up in us. That root of bitterness could even be within you. You feel it. You think it in your mind, but you feel it in your belly.
When you have forgiven that person and you have been forgiven, and that spirit of bitterness has been removed from you, can you remember what they said or did to you? Yes, you can remember because that is what your memory does, but you no longer feel that high octane ping in your inner parts. That means the sin that dwelt within is no longer teaching you. Your mind may remember, but it is okay because the Word of God is strong in you now. The law of God is there.
You are to forgive your brother how many times? Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven Matthew 18:22 (NKJV). Forgive them and release them every minute of the day. His teaching will help you forgive other people. This teaching will help you to forgive yourself, because it was not you that did it or them that did it to you. It was the sin that lives within. In Romans 7, Paul struggled with this very thing, the sin within.
15 I do not understand the things I do. I do not do what I want to do, and I do the things I hate. 16 And if I do not want to do the hated things I do, that means I agree that the law is good. 17 But I am not really the one who is doing these hated things; it is sin living in me that does them.18 Yes, I know that nothing good lives in me—I mean nothing good lives in the part of me that is earthly and sinful. I want to do the things that are good, but I do not do them. 19 I do not do the good things I want to do, but I do the bad things I do not want to do. 20 So if I do things I do not want to do, then I am not the one doing them. It is sin living in me that does those things. 21 So I have learned this rule: When I want to do good, evil is there with me. 22 In my mind, I am happy with God's law. 23 But I see another law working in my body, which makes war against the law that my mind accepts. That other law working in my body is the law of sin, and it makes me its prisoner. 24 What a miserable man I am! Who will save me from this body that brings me death? 25 I thank God for saving me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So in my mind I am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful self I am a slave to the law of sin Romans 7:15-25 (NCV).
Paul understood his shortcomings. We must understand the shortcomings of ourselves and others. We must separate the person from the sin and understand what the enemy is trying to do within us.
Grace is not an excuse to sin. It is by His grace that we are saved. As part of our salvation, we have an obligation to read the Word of God so sanctification can be unto God. Jesus had a lot to say about sanctification in the Book of John, chapter 17 “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world,” (John 17:16) and this is before His request: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your Word is truth” (V. 17). Sanctification is a state of separation unto God; all believers enter into this state when they are born of God: “But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption”(1 Corinthians 1:30). This is a once-for-ever separation, eternally unto God. It is an intricate part of our salvation, our connection with Christ (By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Hebrews 10:10).
AMEN!
Tony Sanchez
Blessings to you,
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