Remedy for Rejection

I believe the primary result of rejection is the inability to receive or communicate love. None of us can communicate love unless we have first received love. This point was made by John in the New Testament, when he wrote:

“We love Him [God] because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19)

I do not believe anyone can love unless he has first been loved. Thus, a person who has never been loved cannot transmit love.

The secondary results of rejection are the three main ways in which people commonly react to rejection: first, there is the person who gives in; second, there is the person who holds out; and, third, there is the person who fights back. These three ways of reacting to rejection have one thing in common. Each is essentially defensive, offering a method of covering up the hurt. None of them is a positive solution. God, however, has a positive solution.

In Isaiah 61:1, we find a promise that was fulfilled through the coming of Jesus the Messiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners” (NASB)

In fulfillment of this promise, God has provided a remedy for rejection. It comes to us through Jesus and the cross. God’s eternal purpose, even before creation, was that we might become His children—His sons and His daughters. When Jesus bore our sin and suffered our rejection, He opened the way for our acceptance by the One whose acceptance truly matters.