Read this message with the expectation that it will change you and open a new level of relationship for you that you have never experienced before. If you have difficulty relating to others because you feel rejected by them, this Word will reveal an important truth based on a familiar chapter of Scripture, Isaiah 53. Christ was rejected so that we do not have to be. Everyone forsook Him and fled. He endured this rejection so that we need not ever feel rejected, no matter what we go through. Verses 1–6, especially verse 3, show us that Christ was rejected for our sake.
Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of parched ground; He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men (notice that—He was despised and forsaken), a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and like one from whom men hide their face, He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. Isaiah 53:1–6.
This is enough of the chapter to establish the fact that Christ was rejected for our sake. Let us tie it in with Hebrews 4:15–16: For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.
For a better understanding of these two passages, they should be read together. Isaiah tells us that Christ was despised and rejected of men. No one even wanted to look on Him (Isaiah 53:3). Hebrews says that He sympathizes with us because He was tempted in all things as we are, yet He was without sin. The result is that we have access; we draw near boldly to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in the time of need (Hebrews 4:15–16).
These Scriptures paint a picture which can help us understand many of the problems people have. Sometimes they do certain things or relate in certain ways because they do not feel that they are accepted. There is a deep sense of rejection in them. Because they feel rejected, they put up walls to others, saying, “They have rejected me anyway, so I will wall them off.” Or they say, “I am not going to hang onto them. If they do not want to accept me, if they want to reject me, that is all right. I will give them plenty of opportunity to do so. I probably cannot do anything about it anyway.” If you think about this carefully, you realize that it is this type of unbelief which opens the door to faulty relationships within the Body of Christ. We do not accept the fact that we are accepted.
Let me give you an illustration of how this attitude of opening the door for people to reject you causes faulty relationships within the Body. Several years ago I stood before a group of ministers and told them, “You do not have to stand with me. You know the Word and you love the Word; but you do not have to be related to me at all.” This was at a time when persecution was directed against me, and I did not want to involve others in it. I sincerely meant what I said, but I was wrong. I have always had a tendency to open the door for people to withdraw from me; but the truth is that if they walk away from me, then they are also walking away from the Word I preach. God has dealt with my heart on this point. Not only must I accept the fact that God chose me to speak a Living Word and that the Word is real, but I must also accept the fact that He is identifying me with that Word. Jesus told His disciples, “If they have accepted Me, they will accept you also. If they accept My Word, they will accept yours too” (John 15:20).
There are certain laws which apply to the entire universe, governing both natural and spiritual matters. To understand how relationships work within the Body, the family of God, let us examine four different types of relationships. First of all, the natural relationship between parents and children illustrates some important truths concerning spiritual relationships. A child who grows up feeling rejected by his parents will probably battle insecurity and immaturity all of his life. Because he feels rejected, he may wall himself off and reject the oneness with others in every relationship he has. It all happens because he felt rejected from the very beginning.
The same thing can happen spiritually. If you are battling insecurity within the Body of Christ, feeling that you are not accepted, then you had better find out why you feel that way. Actually, it is very simple. Either you accept the Word that Christ took this rejection upon Himself for you, or you do not accept it. If you believe that He took it upon Himself for you, then you also have to believe, “I am accepted in the Beloved,” just as the Scripture says (Ephesians 1:6–7). You must believe that you are accepted because the Lord Jesus was rejected. You must believe that you have become the righteousness of God because of the fact that He who knew no sin was made sin for us (II Corinthians 5:21). You have to believe in healing because “by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). You must believe that He bore our sins and carried our iniquities upon Himself (Isaiah 53:6, 12). If you do not believe that, then you do not believe in the Savior, the only Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.
You must believe that Christ gave Himself for you (Galatians 1:4). Even the Father turned His back on Him, causing Him to cry out on the cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46.) If even the Father did that, can you understand what Christ experienced so that you would always feel accepted? No matter what happens, your feeling of being rejected is not valid. You may want to qualify that by saying, “But you have to walk in the light.” That is true. If you walk in the light as He is in the light, then you will not be rejected. You will have fellowship with one another (I John 1:7). But remember that God accepted you long before you began to walk in the light. Do you feel that people are rejecting you? Quite frankly, that is unbelief.
Let us look at a second illustration in the natural realm—the relationship between husbands and wives—and apply it to the spiritual level. Someone once said that in a marriage, the first hundred years are the hardest. There is that awful struggle to accept each other without having a fear of rejection. Perhaps you feel, “I will put up a wall, because if people really get to know me, they will not like me.” You feel that you cannot let anything show that is in your life, because others will see what you are. But if you look closely at the Scriptures you will see that no effort was made by the New Testament writers to reject Peter. Everything about him—including all his faults—is clearly recorded. He had a way of saying or doing the wrong thing. He objected to Christ saying that He would be crucified (Matthew 16:21–23); he wanted to be the greatest in the Kingdom (Mark 9:34); he denied his Lord (Matthew 26:69–75); he withdrew and went fishing (John 21:3). Nevertheless, none of that was an occasion for his being rejected.
The fear of rejection causes the walls to go up: “This person will reject me, so I had better be careful.” But those walls are deadly; they make the other fellow feel that you have rejected him. That person thinks, “He has walls up to me. He does not like me, so I guess I am not going to like him either.”
Realize that walls are based on insecurity, which is based on unbelief: you do not believe the Word. Relationships will work fine if you just believe the Word. If you believe the Word, your relationship with God is established. If your relationship with God is established, then your worship comes forth with a great deal of faith toward Him and love for Him. And if you stand and worship this way and walk in this light, then you have fellowship with one another (I John 1:7). The Word becomes the basis of your worship, which becomes the basis of your fellowship, which becomes the basis of your work. Because the works are wrought in faith (James 2:14, 17), that becomes the basis of warfare. You believe who you are; you believe where you stand; you believe that the Word of God is true. Then you can fight the fight of faith against all demons because you recognize Satan as a defeated foe (John 16:11). Everything comes right back to a war over the Word.
The third illustration of relationships is more spiritual than natural. It is the relationship between the sheep, the members of the Body. Criticism, gossip, and harshness are deadly convincers that you have been rejected, whereas kindness is the greatest convincer of fellowship that there is. Perhaps you are critical of a brother who is doing something wrong and you feel that he should be exposed. Don’t do it! Keep your mouth shut and pray for him. Confront alone if you must, but with love. Even if your gossip seems to be based completely on fact, keep your mouth shut. Avoid any harshness in your spirit, because it is a deadly convincer to tell this person that he has been rejected. If the sheep feel that they have been rejected, it is very difficult for them to stay around or for God to deal with them.
The fourth illustration concerns the relationship between the shepherds and the sheep. God deals with our hearts concerning this for one reason: We must have faith in this oneness with the Lord and with one another. We must not be constantly giving people the opportunity to feel rejected. The story has been told of a boy who wanted to run away from home. When his mother learned that he was planning to run away, she asked him if he would like her to help him pack. Of course, he was not expecting that. When he was all packed, she asked him where he was going and what he would do. He did not know. Then she suggested that he get his wagon and carry his suitcase in it. She also gave him some money. All the while, he was waiting for someone to convince him that he should not leave, but no one said a word. He kept standing around, and finally she asked him if he wanted to eat supper first. He did; and by the time he was finished, he had changed his mind. He never got out of the front yard. That method worked, but I do not like it. It is not a good way to teach a child a lesson. Somewhere in his heart, that boy will always remember, “I was ready to leave, and they were going to let me!”
I am convinced that we have allowed too many people to leave us. It is easy to say, “We do not really want them to go; but they have rejected us. If they want to go, we will let them.” But that is not right. We must hang onto them. The fact that I have hung onto people has saved many. But another factor enters in. When people feel rejected, there is a perverse tendency for them to say, “Since you reject me, I will put up a wall. I cannot help it.” Even if you feel rejected, you must not reject others.
One of the biggest problems you face in your own walk with God and with the Word He has spoken is that you must reach in and take it for yourself. When you hear a truth, it is not enough to say, “This is marvelous.” You must take it and apply it to yourself. A pastor cannot give a Word to someone else without eventually having God put him in a corner and say to him, “You have preached to everyone else and told them that they will have to change. Now you must apply the Word you have preached to other people, so that you too will change.”
If you accept the Word, you will accept the fact that you are accepted by God. You will accept your access to Him, and this is all that is required. Then you can come boldly to the throne of grace and find help in the time of need (Hebrews 4:16).
Many of the problems in the churches are based on satanic input—Satan makes us feel rejected, in order to cause us to put up walls. It would not be difficult to find many examples which clearly show the satanic element which creeps into our relationships to keep us from the full impact of oneness. Jesus said, “If two or three agree on earth touching anything they ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:19). Notice that there must be a deep agreement. If we walk together in the light, we have deep fellowship with one another; and the blood of Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness (I John 1:7). It is to be a deep cleansing. We have not yet seen that thorough a penetrating, cleansing work of God in our lives, but we will. We will see it because we will refuse to put up walls when Satan makes us feel rejected.
The world teaches that a person must have self-confidence. Almost every course in salesmanship teaches self-confidence. However, we know that we do not have any reason to glory in the flesh (I Corinthians 1:29). We come looking for help, knowing already that we are absolutely inadequate in ourselves. Instead of self-confidence, we must have something else to motivate us and help us to prevail. Self-confidence is ruled out, because we know that in ourselves we are not sufficient to think anything is of ourselves (II Corinthians 3:5). Instead, we come by the Word; we accept our place with God. When we accept the fact that God created a place for us (I Corinthians 12:18), then we have the victory. If you accept your oneness with the Lord, based on what He has said (John 17:21), then you have beaten the lie of the enemy. The whole war that Satan brings is to try to convince you that you do not have a place with one another, that you have not been set into the Body (I Corinthians 12:18). He tries to make you feel that there is always something wrong.
We must accept what God has said over each one of us. It is easy to look at a brother’s offenses and see how much he is stumbling. But probably he is doing so because down deep in his heart he does not really believe the Word that has been preached and taught to him so that he accepts his oneness with the Body. If he did accept it, he would receive a lot of help. That help would be forthcoming immediately and he could draw on it. But instead of going up to a brother and asking for help, he wonders where he stands.
No one really wants to face up to this fact, but it is true that Satan has lied about the churches and about the Kingdom businesses. Some people have left; Satan lied about them. We have seen this kind of problem quite often. There is not one place where God has moved that Satan has not moved in to try to create a wall. The minute we all see that it is a lie to be sent into the pit, then we will accept the oneness that God says we have! And if we accept that oneness, we will prevail.
Do not wait for your brother to take down his walls. Start with yours. Realize that only in the Body of Christ can we be neighbors and have no walls. This probably will not work in the neighborhood where you live. If you take down the fence between you and your next-door neighbor, he may sue you and force you to put the fence back up better than it was before. But this taking down of our walls will work in the Body of Christ, because it is based upon a oneness He created that does not exist in the world and never will. Only in Christ are we brought together into that oneness. We may have many problems, but again, the problems of relating go back to the fact that we do not accept the Word which says that we are one; and therefore we walk in an insecurity, a lack of confidence in the Word. If God says we are a certain thing, then that is what we are. Let us believe it! If He says that He set us in the Body as it pleased Him, then that is exactly what He did: He set each one of us in the Body as it pleased Him (I Corinthians 12:18).
Romans 12:1 tells us, “Come and present your bodies a living sacrifice.” Are you afraid to give yourself to the Lord because you feel that you are nothing? Notice that the verse goes on to say that this is your “acceptable service.” You present yourself so that you know what is “the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” God accepts you when you give all to Him, and He teaches you His will which is acceptable to Him. There will not be any mistakes on it; you will walk with God.
Our approach to God is not like Queen Esther’s approach to her husband, the king. Thank God our King and Lord is not like that king. It was very risky for Esther to go before the king to make her petition known. The guards’ swords were drawn, and the fact that she was queen would not deter them from killing her on the spot if the king failed to extend his royal scepter to her (Esther 4:11). Of course, we know that he did extend his scepter. She made careful preparation, and she found favor in his sight (Esther 4:15–17; 5:2).
We do not have to approach God’s throne fearfully. Instead, we come boldly to find grace to help in the time of need (Hebrews 4:16). Why do we come boldly? Because we have a High Priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). He is one with us! He loves us! He will help us! In Old Testament times, people trembled to come into the presence of God (Psalm 2:11). Now, even though we feel that we are nothing, we can come boldly and find grace and help. We must believe that and lose our fear of rejection.
For years I entertained the question in my mind if God really accepted me. Although I knew that He had called me and I had a wonderful anointing to minister to His people, I did not sense that He loved me. Have you ever felt that way, as though God’s love is flowing to everyone else, but it is very hard for you to lay hold of it yourself? This is because you are the one who is getting the rod on your back. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens (Hebrews 12:6). You do not really experience the Lord chastening your brother. You may feel it a little, but what you feel the most is what is coming down on your own back. You are being chastened by the Lord as He “scourges every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:6). But it is also true that whatever you lack, He will give to you. James 1:5 says that if you lack wisdom, He will give you wisdom. He has given us all things richly (I Timothy 6:17). The promises of God are tremendous, but what you really need is faith in your relationship with the Lord, based upon His Word.
How does Satan accomplish his work? That spiritual sickness, that fear of rejection, comes about for many reasons. One is that you do not believe the Word which has come from the Lord. Another is that Satan discredits the messenger who brought the Word. He may pinpoint your failures so that you feel that no one is accepting you, or he may point out someone else’s faults so that you reject him. The whole idea behind his working is this feeling of rejection, which is born right out of hell. If Christ was despised and rejected of men, it was so that we could be beloved and accepted of the Father (Isaiah 53:3; Ephesians 1:6–7).
As we are loosed from this fear of rejection, the spiritual barometer will rise, and showers of blessings will begin to fall (Ezekiel 34:26). What about all the problems? Problems will still be with us. If the Lord solved all our problems today and left us just a loving, wonderful group of people, soon there would be more people coming in and bringing their problems with them. There is no magic doormat available on which people can leave their problems as they wipe their feet at the church door. When they come in, they will have problems. Leaving the corruption of the flesh is a process, as we realize that the Lord has laid on Christ the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). We break through together. We become the agents of one another’s sanctification. Oneness in the Body does not just happen. There must be a faith so great that it rejects the doubt and unbelief and insecurity, along with the fear of rejection, and opens the door for us to accept our oneness. We are one in the Lord.
This fear of rejection can affect the relationship between children and parents, husbands and wives, sheep and sheep, and shepherds and sheep. God wants our hearts opened so that He can seal to us a determination that we will not reject and we will not be rejected, that we are accepted and that we accept our brother. It must be a determination that lays hold of the Scriptures. You must enter into that determination yourself. Ask God to seal to your spirit this dedication: “I will not reject, and I will not be rejected. I will not accept rejection. I am accepted by God and by the brethren.” Is it really that simple? No, but it is a sure starting place. There may still be people who reject you; but when your walls are down, it will only be a matter of time until they take down their walls too. We seal ourselves with that determination! We will walk in the oneness that God has spoken! He will help us with it!
Some people are so sensitive that often even the raise of an eyebrow can upset them. It does not take much to offend them, because they are conditioned by Satan to believe that everyone is ready to reject them. I have spent a great deal of time trying to convince the blacks that they are absolutely, perfectly accepted, but I still notice that when they are with other blacks they are freer than they are around whites. This is true not only of blacks and whites; it is true in every segment of society. It is especially true in the Midwest, where people are raised with class consciousness. Almost everywhere there is a stigma attached to a person who was “born on the wrong side of the tracks.”
Everyone has been striving to be something to someone else, and that causes walls. When a person tries to be “special” to a leader, he may complain that he does not feel close to the leader, but the leader probably does not feel close to him either. That striving for position keeps the brothers from flowing together and from feeling their oneness, even when they wish to be one.
It is your faith, or your unbelief, that actually determines whether you will walk without stumbling or whether you will suffer defeat without a cause. We must lay hold of this truth, for it will change everything. We do not reject others, but we do reject their rejection. We refuse to accept their rejection, and they cannot reject our acceptance. Either you will walk without stumbling or you will suffer defeat without a cause, depending upon whether you are filled with faith or with unbelief.
Persecution is coming, and in a sense that is good. It causes a man to stand on what God’s Word has said. If he will not accept the Word of God concerning who he is and what his relationship is to be to that Word and to his brother, then he will back off. Our walk demands that we believe the Word. If we are shaken and do not know what we believe, if it has not been a real revelation to our own heart, then we will back off. We have had a true Word from God for many years. The persecutors come along and criticize it; they call it false doctrine and say that we are in the depths of iniquity. But it does not matter what they say. If we believe the Scriptures and the Word that has come and it is a revelation to our heart, then we will make it fine! We will join together with our brothers and sisters and say, “We will stand together more than ever before. We are all accepted because we are welded and fused together by the Word from the Lord!”
I have studied churches where people have stumbled and lost out. The more I study it, the more I see that because of something which happened in the past, they cannot accept themselves anymore. It may have been something vicious or even immoral, and they are still stumbling from it. They are stumbling because they cannot accept that the Word of God can bring to them a real release. They cannot accept that the blood of Jesus Christ will cleanse them from all unrighteousness (I John 1:7, 9). They cannot believe that, and so they keep stumbling along and they draw back. They feel insecure.
If something like that is bothering you, just lay it before the Lord. And pray, “Here it is, Lord! I will not walk with the fear that I am not accepted. I refuse to feel like a third-class citizen in the Kingdom of God because of mistakes I have made that other people know about or might find out about. I will not walk with that burden.” Leave all of that fear behind! Get ready for a whole new position of oneness. We will all stand in that oneness together. We will be one, absolutely one in the Lord Jesus Christ. We accept this oneness. We accept our place in God. By the Word that He has spoken, we accept the fact that we have been included. We are raised up together! We do not reject a brother, and we refuse rejection ourselves. We accept our brother, and we proclaim our own acceptance in the sight of God, by the blood of Jesus Christ! No matter what has happened, He is the One who took all of our mistakes upon Himself! By His stripes we are healed! The Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all! He was despised and rejected of men; but the Father said that He would see the intercession of His soul, and many transgressors would be made righteous (Isaiah 53:11–12).
Either you accept the truth or you accept a lie, and the only truth is the Word of God. Romans 8:1 declares, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The spirit of life that dwells in Him has set you free. There is no condemnation, no self-condemnation, and no rejection in Christ Jesus. God does not say one thing while His heart is actually another way. The Lord is the Lord that He says He is in the Scriptures. If He says He forgives you, then He forgives you. Let there be an acceptance in your heart of the Word which God has spoken over you.
Open your heart to this Word and let it change you, for it has authority to shatter rejection and to create the very thing it speaks of. Let God deal with the rejection of your own heart, the unbelief in your spirit regarding your relationship with the Father. Open up to the love of God and to your oneness with Him. No one can reject you if, in your heart, you know your relationship and your oneness with Him. And that will bring a oneness with the whole Body. Be diligent to make your brothers and sisters feel loved; be diligent to feel accepted yourself.
No longer will we allow the earthly relationships we have known to be a limitation to the divine relationship and love that God has for us. We belong to the Father and to one another, and we accept that relationship. No matter how hard we try to relate and to accept one another, our relationship to the Body will fall short until we have accepted our own relationship to the Lord. We tend to be harder on ourselves than on anyone else, but we must open up to God and become aware that He loves us with all of His heart. Then we can relate to one another.
God is revealing to us that we dishonor the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ if we do not believe in our acceptance in Him. Justification by faith is not just an old-fashioned doctrine. Romans 3:23–24 tells us, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This applies to every one of us, but we are … justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Paul went on to explain: Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law. Romans 3:27–28. We do not have to wait until we have performed in a certain way; we just accept that He has accepted us.
We have an obligation to respond in the same way that Christ did, because the Lord has made us as Christ to the earth (I John 4:17). Jesus said, “All those who come to Me, I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37). He willfully refused to reject anyone, and we must do the same. We have a responsibility not to reject any who would come unto us. May the Lord give us a sensitivity in our responses and reactions to one another, so that we do not offend the little ones or become a stumbling block to them. On the other hand, we also are not to wear our emotions and feelings on our sleeves. We put an end to sensitivity. In every area where there would be offense, may the Lord guard our responses, our acceptances, and our reactions one to another.
God has given us this truth concerning rejection and acceptance, but Satan will still war against it. Even though we are not rejecting anyone, Satan will keep telling lies; and out in the Christian world some group may accuse us of rejecting them when we have not. They will say that we have not accepted Christ; but we have. Satan will plant the lie everywhere he can to make people go against this Word. Either he makes them believe that they have been rejected themselves, or he causes them to reject someone else. What shall we do about it? There is only one answer, and that is the Word.
Acts chapter 19 records the great hostility and persecution that arose in Ephesus when Paul and his companions preached the Word. Up until that time, the silversmiths who made shrines to Diana of the Ephesians had a thriving business because the entire city worshiped her. But many accepted the Word and turned away from idols, and so the silversmiths were being put out of business. They incited a riot against the disciples, dragged them through the city, and brought the whole city into confusion concerning them (Acts 19:23–41). But the Scriptures tell us that “the Word of God grew and prevailed” (Acts 19:20).
This is where we have to start too. We must accept this Word and keep speaking it until it prevails, until the acceptance in Christ prevails, until the oneness of the Body prevails and overwhelms everything else. We will hang onto the Word, persecution or not, until it grows and is multiplied greatly (Acts 12:24). We have His Word; and if we hang onto it without wavering, if we have faith and believe it with all our heart, then that Word will prevail. It will win.
Paul stayed in Ephesus and spoke the Word there for two years, “so that all who lived in Asia heard the Word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10). Those who had formerly practiced magic brought their magic books that were worth fortunes and burned them (Acts 19:18–19). Ephesus became one of the outstanding churches in the New Testament. In the message to the churches in the book of Revelation, John spoke of how the church at Ephesus had had such a deep first love for God (Revelation 2:4). What caused it? The Word. They accepted the Word, and they were able to go through the fires and the testing.
The twentieth chapter of Acts describes Paul’s last meeting with the elders of the Ephesian church. He spoke to them the Word of the Lord, and he warned, “After my departure, elders will come up from among your own selves who will be like wolves devouring the flock” (Acts 20:28–30). The same thing is happening today. Look around and you will see great unbelief. Satan is bringing many lies to try to destroy this Word and to destroy the Church. If you believe them, you will be torn in the middle of the conflict. Do not let anything disturb you now. Instead, reach into the oneness that is in Christ. Heed this Kingdom Proverb: If Satan can get you to take sides on an issue, both sides have lost. There is only one thing to do—keep speaking the Word until it prevails (Acts 19:20).
When we believe the Word, we are one, and nothing will separate us. We reject unbelief and the lie of the enemy; and we accept who Christ is, what He has said, and what that makes us, both before Him as we worship Him and to one another.
In our relationships, we must trust the love our brother has for us. We must trust this oneness, so that we are not moved by our emotions and any moodiness that hits us. What will be the result of this acceptance? Isaiah 58:6–12 tells us: “Is this not the fast which I chose, to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and break every yoke? Is it not to divide your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into the house; when you see the naked, to cover him; and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?” We must come into the family spirit. We cannot hide ourselves from our own flesh.
“Then your light will break out like the dawn, and your recovery will speedily spring forth; and your righteousness will go before you; the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday. And the Lord will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail. And those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will raise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of the streets in which to dwell.”
We will come to the place where no longer does any suspicion dominate—neither the suspicion that the other brother has rejected you, nor the feeling that maybe you should reject him before he rejects you. All of those things disappear, and in their place comes the fast that He chose, where we feed one another and bless one another. Then, right out of obscurity comes forth the glory of the Lord.
This Word is coming as a result of my own repentance before the Lord for the willingness I have had in the past to accept other people’s rejection of me or of the Word I speak. How often I have left the door open for them to walk away, but God does not want that. He wants me to lock them into the Word so that they do not run away from it. Everyone who is a part of this end-time remnant must realize: You were set in this body of believers (I Corinthians 12:18). You did not have to apply for church membership. You did not have to come and raise your right hand, or shake the preacher’s hand, or buy your way in. You are here because you believed a Word and God set you in. I admonish you to reject rejection and to accept your acceptance in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6). Accept the fact that you have accepted the Word; and then do not waver on it, because doubt, insecurity, and instability lead into an acceptance of rejection. Hebrews 10:23 encourages us, “Let us hold fast our confession without wavering.” Accept the fact that you have accepted the Word and that you have been accepted. Let your confession be the Word.