The Gospel and Rejection

What is the deepest rejection you have ever felt? The emotional issues surrounding rejection are significant to our overall emotional spiritual health and are actually at the core of what it means to be a Christian.


John 1:11-12 makes it clear that Jesus came to his own - that is, His own people. The ultimate response was rejection. They made it clear that He was not wanted. In fact, they traded Him in for a common criminal.

As I ponder the depth of rejection in the life of Jesus I am reminded that my only hope for enduring rejection is to throw myself upon the rejected Jesus. He bore our rejection through His own life, death and victorious resurrection.

A life redeemed and gospelized will accept rejection as part of the story, but will never lose hope because through Jesus we are accepted by the One who matters - Holy God.  I am His child, adopted into Him and never again subjected to being an outcast.

Rejoice and pray for rejects to come and embrace Jesus!

The Gospel, Shame and Freedom

Whatever happens tomorrow morning is ultimately up to God - but if I could do one thing it would be to make one truth absolutely clear - the gospel leads us to shame while at the same time it leads us to freedom.

For a number of years I have pondered the impact of Adam's sin in the garden. There was a time when I narrowly applied sin as only "separation from God" - in reality sin separates us from everyone and everything. The death is not just physical but emotional, psychological and relational.  Sin is the root cause of all our distorted thinking, acting and leads us to despair. The gospel is the power of God to break through the despair and bring life. A life which is completely unified. We are finally freed to be all that God intends us to be which is the essence of our unity with Him, with ourselves and with one another.

When I first hear this good news it doesn't sound all that good. My sin has fooled me into thinking that I could actually be god. That I could rule myself and the world. The gospel tells me something different. It tells me I am a fraud. A phony. A liar and thief. Broken I receive the truth that unless I receive Jesus I will continue to live in disunity.

The hope of the gospel is that when I come broken and helpless before the Maker I can receive His life. He not only receives me with gladness but repairs me  - He puts me back together again. This is the glorious gospel of freedom and is the only hope for my shame to be eradicated. 

Tomorrow I preach with eager anticipation because the power of the gospel changes everything and I can't think of any better messages to give to broken humans.

Notes along the way

Diving into a clear cold pool of water is something like coming to terms with your emotional health. At first the water feels so cold and it is even difficult to breathe - but - it doesn't take long to "get use to the water". 

Not too long ago I decided to jump in a pool of very cold water. The journey began with an examination of my own life and the basic dissatisfaction I felt internally. From there I took some action steps as I visited a spiritual healer at the "Spiritual Life Center" in Easton. I kept walking painfully toward health as I read through two books on emotionally healthy spirituality. One book dealt directly with some deficiencies in my own understanding of what it meant to be a disciple of Jesus and the other helped me to process what a emotionally  healthy church would look like.

Along the way I saw my discipleship change from feeling like I had to constantly prove myself to God in order to earn His love or keep His love and I began to embrace the freedom of the gospel of grace. It was painful and at times like that cold pool of water - but I also have learned that discipleship as a process is not painless.

My hope in teaching a series on the gospel and our emotions is simple and straight forward - I want people to consider taking some action steps with their emotional health so that they have the kind of discipleship Jesus intended. Just as we hold on tight to reconciliation and redemption in Jesus, we should also embrace restoration as a critical part of our reconciliation and redemption in Jesus.