Rejection hurts!! It can be so strong that it tries to take us out of our game! Unfortunately, many of us have experienced it in our lives in one way, shape, or form. Rejection comes in different forms and it can catch us by surprise. There are two areas that rejection seems to affect us deeply. One area is when we have built a faulty foundation on some past painful experience. This becomes what we are familiar with, and we must recognize it in order to put a stop to it. The second area of rejection is one that comes in our day to day interactions in life.
In this devotional, I’ll talk about the voices from our past (Tradition or Transformation). In my next devotional, I will talk about the day to day circumstantial rejection.
Tradition or Transformation
How many times have you rejected something because it didn’t fit your picture?
We can reject God’s truth even when it has great benefit to us because it is not something we are used to believing, or it didn’t come in the form in which we expect to see it.
He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. Mark 7:9
The word “reject” in the above passage means- to do away with, to set aside, disregard, to thwart the efficacy of anything, nullify, make void, frustrate, to reject, to refuse, to slight.
Tradition can become the old tapes that we are accustomed to hearing constantly. It is those voices that we are not willing to let go of and are familiar to us. As a result we reject what God says about us.
I know, many times I am against myself. I sit and dine with the enemy at a banquet table and our table is full of lies, hurtful statements of the past, bad memories, & past mistakes. I allow myself to take in so much garbage, that I turn against myself. I don’t need any other enemy. I reject myself. Many times the voices from the past are no longer in my life anymore, but their voices are louder than what I hear today and know to be true.
Ultimately when we reject ourselves, we are rejecting His work in creating us, and we are rejecting His work in our lives. As in the above definition, the word “reject” in Greek means “to thwart the efficacy of something”. We don’t want to become a hindrance and a stumbling block to God’s effective work in our lives. We want to be aligned to His plan, in unity and harmony with His will, so that our understanding is lined up with the Truth.
What voice of rejection from the past are you hearing today? Is it consistent with what the Lord says about you?
Forgive others and yourself and destroy the old tapes!! It’s time to let them go!