A great deal of what we go through in our relationships is based upon our fear of being rejected and our struggle to be accepted. In Peter’s first Epistle, he wrote about rejection, about our acceptance by God, about our own acceptance of our place in God, and our acceptance of one another with a pure, fervent love. He helps us unravel a most practical truth concerning our walk with God.
Certain words in this passage are underlined for emphasis: And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men, but choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, and he who believes in Him shall not be disappointed.” This precious value, then, is for you who believe, but for those who disbelieve, “The stone which the builders rejected, this became the very corner stone,” and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. I Peter 2:4–10.
Peter emphasized that we were redeemed with the precious blood of the Lamb. We were redeemed with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. I Peter 1:19. In verses 21–22 Peter wrote: Through Him (you) are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.
In our relationships, we all face this fear of rejection and the struggle to be accepted. It has been a dealing of the Lord upon my own heart to accept my spiritual place, to go back to the Word which God gave and accept in my own heart that what He said was true—to accept myself according to what God said I was to be. In so doing I will close the door that I have opened for people to withdraw from the Living Word that is spoken.
If you do not accept the Word for yourself, then often you do not insist on anyone else accepting it. The Lord spoke plainly, “If they accept My Word, they will accept your Word also” (John 15:20). “If they accept Me, they will accept you also” (John 13:20). When He sent the disciples forth, it was not because they were great in themselves. Rather, they had a Word and a commission from God; and they had to accept that Word and that commission from the Lord when they went forth. If they had not accepted it, how could they have expected anyone else to accept it? They had to have faith in what God had done.
Anyone who struggles to have a place or to be accepted in the Body as a ministry makes a big mistake. The real struggle is not to get others to accept you; it is to get you to accept yourself before God. You must accept the Word that God has spoken over you. It all starts right there.
Peter lined out this principle of acceptance and rejection: “Jesus was the stone that the builders rejected. But God counted Him accepted and very precious, and upon Him we build.” It is true that the world rejected Him, and they will reject us also. But God accepts us! Because we—and all believers everywhere—have come into a faith in Jesus Christ, we must accept the fact that we have a relationship with God on the basis of that faith. We have to believe that Jesus Christ was despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him. Isaiah 53:3a. When Jesus hung on the cross, He had been forsaken by most of the disciples and even by the Father Himself. He cried, “My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46.) We must believe that His rejection by the Father was part of His redemptive work, so that when we come before the Father, the Father can say, “All the rejection that you would suffer now has been taken care of. You can come boldly to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). “You are accepted in the Beloved” (Ephesians 1:6).
You are accepted! God has accepted you—not because you deserve it, but because Jesus Christ took your place (Romans 5:6–8). He took upon Himself the rejection of God and of man in order to bring you into a place where you would be acceptable to God. You must realize this! Because of God’s sacrifice of His Son on your behalf, you are accepted (John 3:16; II Corinthians 5:21). You must understand this, because it is the basis of Christianity itself. It is the basic new-birth principle. He had to die so that you can live (John 3:3, 14–16). He had to be rejected so that you can be accepted. He had to carry the chastisement of your peace upon Him; and by His stripes you are healed (Isaiah 53:3–5; I Peter 2:24).
You must accept the complete substitutionary work of Jesus Christ the Lord. If you accept this, then you can believe that He loves you. You must believe that He accepts you, not because you deserve it or because of any work of righteousness you have done. By His own sacrifice for you, He brought you into a place where you will no longer be rejected by God. Since you are not rejected by God, then you must accept that you are accepted, and you also must accept your brother who is in the same position.
All relationships depend on this, yet it has been a problem to us. In I Corinthians 1:12 Paul wrote that some said, “I am of Cephas”; “I am of Apollos”; “I am of Paul.” Some did not want to accept Paul; they wanted to accept another ministry. Such difficulty in relationships comes from the Adamic prerogative—which we think we have—to reject, and from our fear of being rejected.
The Lord was the stone that was rejected, but God made Him the chief cornerstone. And we may have once been no people, but now we are the people of God. Once we had not received mercy, but now we have received mercy. Now we are a people for God’s own possession. We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (I Peter 2:7, 9–10). We become able to see what we are now because Jesus Christ took our place. We see it for ourselves and we see it for one another. Praise God for this truth! It will end a lot of problems in relationships.
Our acceptance by faith in God’s provision is basic to the acceptance of ourselves and of one another and to others’ acceptance of us. If you know that I love the Lord Jesus Christ and that I accept Him as my total Savior and Lord, you must accept me. I must accept you on that same basis. My acceptance is not based upon how well you are doing. It is based upon the truth that when God accepts us, we have to accept one another.
We have seen that acceptance and rejection is an important area in our relationships. Now let us move on to another step, showing how acceptance and accessibility relate to each other. If I believe that I am accepted by God, then I must also believe Hebrews 4:16, which says I can come boldly to the throne of grace and find mercy to help in the time of need. If I believe that God has received me and accepted me by His grace, then I must believe that I have access to Him, and I can come to Him boldly.
It is here that the whole process in this area of acceptance and accessibility establishes or diminishes our relationships with one another. Our access to each other should not be the basis of our acceptance of one another. This is seen in the following illustration of a father-daughter relationship. The little daughter accepts her father and loves him; and the father accepts her and loves her very much. However, this does not mean that the father and the daughter have unlimited access to each other. It is true that if the little girl hurts herself, he would not hesitate to leave a corporation meeting and rush to her side. The accessibility upon demand he would give her. But that does not mean he is always accessible; many other responsibilities pull at him. When those moments of accessibility do come, the little girl can draw heavily from her father and present her woes and needs as though she were the only person in the world to him. But as the little child grows up, she is not always in the position of having her father available and accessible to her.
A wife must face the same thing in her demands upon her husband. She may say, “You are supposed to be everything to me: you’re my sun, my stars, my world.” He says, “Yes, but I have to go now, dear. I’m late for work.” He accepts the relationship, but his availability is determined by other demands also.
Many times accessibility or availability must be received by faith. You will have to believe that I really love you even when you cannot reach through to me. At times when I am not accessible, you must still accept that we have been welded together in a relationship that is based upon the Lord Jesus Christ. A thousand things may come in to test it, but have faith. Believe that though the accessibility is limited, it does not affect the relationship. The little girl thinks, “Daddy, where are you? I need you.” He could be doing many things for her, but he may of necessity be traveling. He may be overseas on business.
It is difficult for a father to be all that he is supposed to be. It is difficult for an apostle to be all that he is supposed to be. It is difficult for a pastor or an elder to be all that he is to be every time the people think that he should be accessible. The time will come when, in the Spirit, the limitations which have been upon us—such as time, scheduling, energy, and geography—will give way. In fact, this has already happened to some degree. Time and time again, individuals will come to mind as though they were standing before me, and I will bless them. Later they might come to me and say, “You know, I was drawing on you.” Our accessibility to each other is not as limited as you may think it is. We have more accessibility than what is apparent in the natural realm.
Do you worry about Jesus being accessible? He is accessible. He is with you, even though you do not see Him or feel Him. It may seem that everything is closed off. Yet it makes no difference what you feel, or what the soul realm with all its senses tells you; He is accessible to you. He is touched by the feeling of your infirmities. You can come boldly and find grace to help in the time of need (Hebrews 4:15–16). You can draw the help you need.
Many times people from some little church that I have never visited come to me and say, “You were drawing on us.” I had never seen their faces before, yet I had drawn on them in their intercession and it had brought me through. We must face the fact that what we see in the natural realm is not always the reality. Our human way of thinking about acceptance and accessibility differs from what they are in the real realm of the Spirit.
The apostolic ministry is effective when the apostle believes to open doors for thousands whom he does not have time to see; and they accept themselves and his opening the door to them, even though his accessibility to them is limited to them in the natural realm. People whose language I cannot speak rejoice when they hear or read the Living Word translated into their own language on a recording or on the printed page. It is always a thing of joy to me to receive letters from other nations, responding to that Word. South Americans send letters in Spanish or Portuguese, pouring out their hearts, and the translation must be conveyed to me. They expect that I can read what they write, for they have read the Word in their own language.
Sometimes a conversation has to be translated among members within a family. A toddler’s jabberings may be totally incomprehensible to everyone except his brother or sister, who is able to give an exact translation. Not even the mother can understand the baby’s words and must have an interpreter. I wonder if that does not happen also in the spiritual realm. When you hear a Word, you may not understand it. You may need someone to explain the apostolic Word from the Lord to your own heart, so that it will build you up and help you. This need for communication exists among members of God’s family. A member may rave on and on to you, and what he is saying must be interpreted because he is exploding on a soul level. However, something real may be coming through from his spirit. Then you go to some elders or pastors, who explain, “Well, he is going through something. This is what he really means.”
We realize that this great problem of communication in our relationships can exist between a husband and wife, between father and children, and between people within the church. It can exist between the sheep in the church and the shepherds over it, and it can exist between different churches that God raises up. At times people cannot comprehend what God is doing through someone else, even while accepting that he has a walk with the Lord.
Sometimes it is difficult to relate to the specific functions of the different departments which make the Living Word available. Among the workers who are moving on in the Lord, there is a spiritual bond and oneness with the apostolic ministry, and this is a real key to our bond with one another.
There are many steps involved in publishing the Word. First, I wait on the Lord and receive the Word. Then I go over it is adding the Scripture references which are a real revelation to my heart.
God surely knew what He was talking about when He spoke through David, The Lord gave the word: great was the company of those that published it. Psalm 68:11. The Word is taped and printed, and this is only the beginning. Then it begins working in the hearts of the people. They recall it and start reviewing it. Pastors say, “This is what the church needs,” and they emphasize that Word in churches here and there. Every Living Word that comes alive in your heart is the result of many hands faithfully working with a dedication as great as or superior to that of the scribes when they reproduced the Word, for they were less concerned about the deep spiritual impact of it. It was more of an exacting religious exercise for them.
Does this Word on acceptance and accessibility help you with some of the things you face? Have you ever felt cut off from the apostolic ministry and thought, “I guess I don’t even know him.” You do not need to know him. He does not need to know you either. If we spent all our time trying to obtain closeness by relating to one another on a human plane, we would never accomplish the things that God wants. Remember that Paul said, “Henceforth know we no man after the flesh” (II Corinthians 5:16). He was saying that knowing one another on the fleshly or soulish plane will not accomplish anything. We are to know each other as the new creation of God and to have faith for it because we all believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ; we believe in the blood of Christ as our sacrifice (Ephesians 1:7); and we are one Body together (Romans 12:5).
The moment we accept that oneness, we eliminate the serious impact of personality clashes on the soul level; we eliminate many other things that are no longer important. Then personality characteristics are no longer a matter of gossip. It no longer becomes an issue to find out what is happening on the soul level or physical level, for we realize that as we keep people moving together before the face of the Lord, those things will be corrected and eliminated. The important thing is that sooner or later they are.
I want you to see how the acceptance by faith and the fear of rejection nullify one another. On one hand, the acceptance by faith will give you the most joyful walk in the Lord and the most blessed relationships. On the other hand, the fear of rejection will make your walk fall so far short that it will always seem empty. Let me explain this by taking an example from the physical realm and applying it in the spiritual realm. Jesus did this, giving a spiritual interpretation out of examples which He took from the natural realm (Matthew chapters 6 and 13).
Don Juan was a legendary figure who was a seducer among seducers. Casanova was a seducer also. In spite of their reputations as great lovers, Don Juan and Casanova were failures; out of a fear of rejection, they were frustrated into soulish, competitive performances. Now let us apply this example in the spiritual realm, in the Body of Christ. Suppose some brother has a weakness in the flesh and is always getting into trouble. Yet behind his actions there may be something other than a weakness of the flesh. Perhaps he cannot accept himself in God, and so he is always trying to establish that he is something. As a result, he chalks up so-called victories to prove that he is all right. Actually, it is an indication that he is not all right. And of course that is what God’s Word says about it. He has allowed the fear of rejection or of not being accepted to pressure him into a frustrated performance.
Let me state this principle in another way: Our failure in relationships in the Kingdom of God is based upon our unbelief. We do not believe in our call, our commission, our relation to the Word over us; and so because of our unbelief we do not measure up. We will minister and relate only on a wrong level when we do not accept ourselves by faith, according to what God has said about us.
When you have faith, you do not have to prove anything. There is a saying based on a line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Methinks thou dost protest too much.” A person on the defensive is always trying to explain himself; he is always protesting, protesting, protesting. But behind it is an attempt to establish something which he himself does not believe. Is he trying to convince others or himself when he protests so much?
Criticism also is based on unbelief. People criticize and pick out little flaws in others while excusing their own failure to walk with God. Do not believe their criticism! When they become excited over unimportant details, there is something wrong. They swallow a camel while straining at a gnat (Matthew 23:24).
God has given a Word. Let us accept His open door to us. Let us accept it for each other. We do not know the reservations we have yet. We do not know the extent to which we hold back. Believe that God has accepted you. Accept yourself. Accept your brother. Open the door and move right into what He has for you.
When the Lord called me to preach, He used this Scripture and made it real to me: Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength (or faith), and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. Revelation 3:8. He said, “I am the One who has the key of David. I am the One who opens and no one can shut. I shut, and no one opens” (verse 7). First, Christ says, “I am opening the door to you.” Then He gives the invitation, “I am knocking at the door. Now you open the door, and I will come in and sup with you, and you with Me” (Revelation 3:20). Is He saying this to individuals? No, He is speaking to the Laodicean body, to the whole Church: “Open the door.”
We must keep an openness to each other. In II Corinthians 6:11–13, Paul entreated, “O Corinthians, my heart is open to you. I entreat you likewise to be open to me. Open your heart. You are not restrained except in yourselves. The door is open. If you accept it, you can walk into it.”
I am called to be a door-opener. I open doors to you because a long time ago, God opened the door to me. Each time He gives the key and a door is opened to me, I open it for you; and you open the door to one another.
God has given a wonderful Word. The Living Word manuals, such as First Principles, The New Testament Church, and Prophetic Utterance, contain marvelous teaching. But it will not do you any good unless you accept it as an open door that you and others can walk in. It does no good for you to recognize that I am a door-opener if you stand outside, shivering. Come in! Walk through the door!
Do you accept what the Word says you are? The world is making an issue concerning what we are; even the Christian world wonders, “Who are these people?” This was true also during Jesus’ ministry. Everyone inquired, “Who is this man?” They did not know if He was of God or of the devil. Because His teaching was so radical, the religious people were quick to say, “He is of the devil.” Jesus asked them, “And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out?” He threw it back on them, because young people were following Christ and the parents were saying it was of the devil. “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Matthew 12:27a, 28.
A person says either yes or no to the Living Word. He either believes the Word or he does not believe it. He believes it if he gets a revelation of it. Many people have more revelation of this than we imagine. Their hearts have been warmed by the Word and they have responded, “This is not just teaching. This is more than another sermon or an exposition. When we get into this, it lives. This is of God.” And even though they do not understand it entirely, they have revelation that God is speaking in the earth.
Accept God’s open door. When an open door is set before you, use it. There are different types of people in the world. There is always the type who is not attentive and shows up with a black eye, explaining that he walked into an open door. If you walk into an open door in the Spirit, you will get more than a black eye. You will be crucified! The Word will be a work of the cross in your life (Revelation 10:9; Hebrews 4:12). You will die on it.
I love you all very much. Let us walk through the door together! Let us move into it. I accept you. You have accepted me, for you have accepted the Word. Will you accept also that you are the people of the Lord? Maybe you were no people at one time, but now you are the people of the Lord, … a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. I Peter 2:9a.
Here is the bottom line: Has your own fear of rejection caused you to draw back from what you could be in the Body? Have you thought, “I wanted to prophesy, but I held back because it did not seem like much of a prophecy. I wanted to get involved, but I didn’t know if people would accept what I could do.” I wonder how many miss the will of the Lord because they do not accept their commission and their place. From now on, believe that you can reach into God as much as anyone else. You can walk in any Word that is preached. You can have any Word that God gives. You can be what God wants you to be. The refusal to be involved is often not so much a matter of a person not believing the Word, but the fact that he does not believe that the Word is accessible to him and that he is accepted through it.
The problem of relationships starts with the individual and his acceptance of God’s Word. From now on, determine that you are all through with excuses. Get right down to the basic truth: God has accepted you. Believe His Word and accept your place in God; and accept the place He has given your brother.