Accepted
By Jerrel Venable
Have you ever applied for a loan and been turned down? No … I’m not offering credit … just sympathy. Being rejected by a loan company is disappointing, but far more than that, being rejected as a person is devastating!
From the time of childhood until adulthood we have all had occasions when we were rejected: if you didn’t make the baseball team, if you didn’t get accepted in the high school choir, if your grades were below the average of the other students in your class, if your girl friend found someone new, if you didn’t get hired by the company where you applied. Or worse – some have lost jobs where you worked, some have family members who reject you, and some have experienced divorce. These problems of rejection come with bone crushing pain. No one enjoys being rejected.
Building a healthy respect for yourself has to begin with Jesus.
Our Father adopted us into His family according to the good pleasure of His will and by His grace …
Eph 1:6 He made us accepted in the Beloved.
I believe the greatest rejection anyone ever experience was when Adam and Eve were barred from living in the Garden of Eden. They lost their home, their beautiful surroundings, their health, their joy, and most of all they lost a daily walk in the Garden with the Creator!
From that time until the time when Jesus died on the cross all mankind experience a separation from God that could only be bridged by the atoning death of Christ. He paid Adam’s debt so you and I could be accepted by the Father into a beloved relationship with Him! Because of Jesus Christ we have been accepted by God the Father!
One of the most beautiful stories of being accepted is about a young man who lost his father and his grandfather in a war. Later, his uncle was assassinated by those who hated his family, and from the time he was a child he was lame in his feet.
2 Sam 4:4
4 Jonathan, Saul's son, had a son who was lame in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel; and his nurse took him up and fled. And it happened, as she made haste to flee, that he fell and became lame. His name was Mephibosheth.
After his grandfather, father, and later his uncle, had been killed, he should have been the next in line to succeed to the throne of Judah, but because of the lameness of his feet he was not counted worthy to be the successor to the throne. He was a lame man in a society that did not encourage the handicapped … and no one counted him worthy of leadership! What rejection… but God had a better plan!
2 Sam 9
1 David said, "Is there still anyone who is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan's sake?"
David and Jonathan had a Covenant relationship.
The story is told in 1 Sam 18:3 “Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. 4 And Jonathan took off the robe that was on him and gave it to David, with his armor, even to his sword and his bow and his belt.”
They renewed their covenant --1 Sam 23:18 “So the two of them made a covenant before the LORD.” They apparently never saw each other again.
3 … Ziba, Saul’s former servant, said to the king, "There is still a son of Jonathan who is lame in his feet."
4 So the king said to him, "Where is he?" And Ziba said to the king, "Indeed he is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, in Lo Debar."
Hebrew
Lo Debar: “Not a pasture”
5 Then King David brought him … from Lo Debar.
7 So David said to him, "Do not fear, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father's sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your grandfather; and you shall eat bread at my table continually."
8 Then he bowed himself, and said, "What is your servant, that you should look upon such a dead dog as I?"
Mephibosheth had been rejected so many times that he saw himself as a dead dog.
9 And the king called to Ziba and said to him … “You and your sons and your servants shall work the land for him, and you shall bring in the harvest, that your master's son may have food to eat. Mephibosheth your master's son shall eat bread at my table always."
Mephibosheth was accepted.
He who had no honor,
Was accepted into a place of honor,
Because of nothing he had done.
He was accepted solely upon the covenant relationship
That David had with his father Jonathan!
He was not given a table out in the back room … he was given a seat at the king’s table! The presence of the King’s table hid the brokenness of his life. At the table he was equal! He was accepted.
You and I have the same story. Before we came to Christ, sin and its bondage had cut us off from knowing King Jesus. We were lame … handicapped … in the bondage of sin. But the king came searching for us … and found us … in the land of “no pasture.”
We would have remained lame and in a place of barrenness if it had not been for the covenant relationship that Jesus made by His blood!
In Ephesians 1:6 can be interpreted from the Greek as “By grace He graced us.”
Acceptance is God’s grace! His grace created a covenant whereby we are now accepted in the Beloved. In Christ we now sit together in heavenly places! We sit together at the communion table and the brokenness of our lives is hidden by the love of God! Being in the Beloved has changed the way our Father sees us! We are accepted!
If you have been rejected by someone you love. If you have been rejected by someone you work with. If you have been rejected by others in society. The beginning of your healing comes at the foot of the cross. It is there you are accepted!
2 Cor 5:21
He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in (Christ).
Phil 3:9
(I want to) be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
We can now say that we are blessed.
We can now say we are the chosen of God.
We can now say we have been adopted into God’s family!
He has accepted us!
I am a child of God!
I am forgiven!
I am a new creation in Christ Jesus!
I have been accepted in the Beloved!
I am a temple of the Holy Spirit.
I am led by the Spirit.
I am delivered from the power of darkness.
I am accepted by my Father in Heaven.
Jesus sought me out from when I was in a dry, barren desert.
Jesus created a covenant between my Father and me through His own blood.
Jesus sat me down at His banqueting table.
I am accepted in His love!
I am accepted in His love!