March 5, 2019
The fact is, psychologically, the deepest wounds you’ve ever experienced in life are the wounds of rejection. Those are the things that hurt you the most. You were belittled. You were betrayed. You were pushed aside. Someone you cared about told you you’re not worth anything and you’re never going to amount to anything. Maybe it was your parents. Maybe it was a former spouse. But everybody experiences it.
In fact, most of us do anything we can in life to avoid that feeling. We think, If I can just be perfect. If I can just look perfect, you know, lose 10 pounds and be the perfect weight. If I didn’t show any of my imperfections to people, then everybody’s going to love me. Everybody’s going to accept me. Nobody’s going to reject me.
Friends, that’s just plain wrong. Jesus was perfect and they nailed Him to a cross! No matter what you do, I hate to tell you this, but somebody’s not going to like you. No matter what you do, somebody’s going to disagree. Somebody is going to reject you.
But there is one person who will never reject you – one person who will always love you and accept you, no matter what. And that person is Jesus, the Lord of Love.
How does Jesus love you? Jesus said, “The Father gives Me My people. Every one of them will come to Me, and I will always accept them.” (John 6:37) Always. That means all the time.
Here at church we talk a lot about accepting Jesus. You’ve probably heard this phrase: “Have you accepted Jesus? Have you accepted Christ in your life?” But have you ever realized? … He’s accepted you!
You can be a Christian all your life and still never really feel accepted by God. You feel like God is always judging you, always putting you down, always on your case – no matter what you do, it’s not good enough.
Let me tell you something. That feeling doesn’t come from God. That feeling comes from growing with unpleasable parents. Many people grew up with unpleasable parents. And every one of us grew up experiencing conditional love, because nobody loves unconditionally all the time. We learn love like: “I love you if … you do these things.” Or: “I love you because … you do these things.” So, we learn conditional love. But God says, “No! I just love you, period. I don’t love you because of who you are – but because of who I am.” God says, “I love you unconditionally. And I will always accept you.” Asking God not to love you is like asking the sun not to shine. The sun can’t help but shine – it’s what it does. And God can’t but love – it’s what He does.
The Bible says: “Even if my mother and father forsake me, the Lord will receive me.” (Psalm 27:10) That’s how much God loves you. He says, “I’m going to accept you no matter what.”
Hello,
I enjoyed reading your post. I googled something along the lines of the title of this post, wanting something generic and christian to help ease some pain and confusion I’ve had in my life and faith recently. I am wondering if you have the same message for lgbtq+ christians and or non christians when it comes to Jesus loving people as they are, and would that extend to even him being pleased with marriage of the same sex. Or do you believe that being gay or lesbian is a manifestation of sin, something to be repressed or viewed as separate from the heart that God gives us. I have been feeling quite torn like this due to more anti lgbtq messages. Thanks for the post regardless!