Are you in Christ? Then you are loved and LIKED, not rejected!

You need to know what God’s love means for you. It means first of all, that God wants you. He wants you. He is after you. If there are people this doesn’t apply to, I don’t believe you would be reading this right now. Very, very few living people have been given up completely to their sin by God. If you have any desire for God or truth or life at all, this is not you. So to repeat: God wants you. He wants you so badly. He wants you for Himself. He wants you to be connected with Him. He wants to put His Spirit in you. He wants to get you out of the hands of the devil. He doesn’t want you to perish. He would take no pleasure in you losing your eternal soul. While you are alive, while you are reading this, God wants to rescue you out of all wretchedness, sin, guilt, misery, shame, demonic torment – He wants you out of it all. He loves you. He wants His Spirit in you. He devised a way to cleanse you of everything that could ever separate you from His love. That way was to send His Son Jesus to pay the ultimate price – to take the bullet for you – to pay off the devil – to satisfy the claims of justice against you, to set you free. This is what Jesus did when he went to the cross. God the Father gave up his Son for you. The Son of God, Jesus, gave up His life for you. That is how much God loves you. Whatever suffering would be necessary to save you – it was a price God was willing to pay – just for you. This is what the love of God means. 

If you have already turned to God, and away from your sin; if you have already rejected your rebellious posture towards God – then you are doubly loved! You can say with confidence that because of the blood of Jesus, you are now actually someone God takes pleasure in. You are someone God delights in. You are not just accepted – you are treasured. Treasured by God.

The person who is In Christ right now is the person who lately has been abiding in Christ – not forsaking Christ through unbelief and sin, but responding to the love of Christ and yielding to God in faith and love. If at any time we do sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ – and we do need to come into the light and return to the Lord (1 John 2:1-4). It is not safe to stay in darkness because Jesus said, “he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the Light of Life” (John 8:12). So let us respond to God’s love and stay in the light. He is working in us. Though we are not perfect in performance, we are still in Christ if we are coming into the light. And there is no condemnation for us when we are in Christ (Romans 8:1).

The Bible tells us that in Him, that is, in Christ, we have been chosen. We have been picked!

just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He ^[a]made us accepted in the Beloved. (Ephesians 1:4-6)

If you are in Christ, rejection is not your identity. The world might reject you, one or more of your parents might even have rejected you, but your identity is that of an accepted, highly favored child of God! You need to tell yourself that regularly, especially if you have ever suffered the wounds of rejection at the hands of people or even at your own hands. Rejection wounds are so common, and we need to stop listening to the spirit of rejection – which is a very common demon which is in a lot of people – even Christians sadly. Once we KNOW THE TRUTH in our hearts, and we have forgiven those people who foolishly rejected and hurt us, not knowing who we are in Christ, then we can live free of this horrible tormenting spirit which brings in so much distortion concerning our self image and also the image of God.

People would never have rejected you if they had a true appreciation of value as God has. God values you greatly. The world may or may not value you. Some Christians are valued by the world for what they are in the natural. Maybe they are good-looking, agreeable, personable, reliable, wealthy or intelligent. Those things might induce a kind of acceptance by the people of the world. Not all of us are very good looking or wise by the world’s standards, and that can lead us into a mindset of rejecting ourselves and feeling rejected. But those things are NOT our true identity. All the things that will pass away – our corruptible bodies and even our brains – these are not who we are in Christ. Our true identity is eternal, incorruptible as a child of God. And as as child of God, we are capable of operating as a child of God with power even in this life – as long as we yield to God’s Spirit. The presence of God’s Spirit is something we can feel – and it can overwhelm all the negative emotions we may have concerning ourselves – provided we can open ourselves to God’s Spirit and learn something of God’s perspective.

I want to repeat: you are very loved by God. If you are in Christ, you are also highly favored. God would give anything good to you – so long as you can listen to His Word and truly receive His Word on the matter. Romans 8:32 says that God will together with Christ, freely give us ALL THINGS. This is amazing. This shows us how loved we are.

What we need to do as Christians if we feel something within us resisting these truths, is to change our thinking, forgive ourselves, accept ourselves because God accepts us and then start talking to the spirit of rejection still afflicting us. We need to tell it to go. Keep speaking to the mountain until it does go (Mark 11:23). Do all you can to draw near to God so that you can have a conscious appreciation of God’s love for you. We need these truths about God’s love to somehow enter the realm of our conscious thinking and emotional life. We don’t want them to remain as theoretical propositions which we doubt for various reasons. So draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Jesus already suffered rejection on the cross – even from His Father – so that you could be set free from the wounds of rejection. Believe that, forgive those who have rejected you, and receive his healing through the power and love of the Holy Spirit.

I hope this message has encouraged you and starts you on a journey of thinking about and believing in the love of God for you personally. You might need to also seek out ministers of healing and deliverance to appropriate everything God is talking about here. But if you meditate on these things, God will reveal His love to you – and that will make all the difference in the world!

Michael Fackerell