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Do you feel accepted?

We only feel really accepted by God as we bring to him all those past hurts that have made us feel rejected and far from him. Feeling accepted is to be able to cry ‘Abba, Father” and really mean it. It is to be able to say in the darkest of places “God has not forgotten me. He will not leave me, fail me or forsake me.” It is to be sure God can be trusted not to let us down and to be able to feel that we can come to Him just as we are and that He will still welcome us and treat us as His children no matter how far we have wandered from Him. It is to know that if we were to become the prodigal then He would show us the truth of that story and welcome us with open arms.

Most of us do not feel completely secure in all the ways described in the first paragraph. Rejection and lack of self acceptance - all the difficulties the distorted relationships we encounter as children and as adults in a fallen world conspire to make us feel that we are not acceptable to God at all. We feel that He cannot possibly want ‘us,’

The trouble is we have until we are born again been adopted by the wrong spiritual father. His name is Satan and he is a liar. He has done all he can to make sure we are the products of as much rejection and fractured relationship as he can organise. He has made sure events worked to show us that we cannot possibly be children of the living God - not really - we are too bad! We may intellectually have thought ourselves part of God’s family but I wonder how many of us deep down have wondered if perhaps God did not make a mistake? Satan has loved to play on that. He is the master of false belief. He will use every word and action we encounter to convince us we are unacceptable. he started when we were very young. In fact from the moment he knew we would be born the devil has been on an out and out campaign to ensure that the one thing we do not get to know is the very depth of the heart of a loving Father God.

The enemy has it in for us. He will fan all false beliefs and all situations to ensure that any feelings of acceptance and self worth are at their lowest ebb. Our experiences when they are bad will appear so that they make us unacceptable to God and man. We feel rejected and think that we must earn our right to be accepted by what we do. Our fears grow beyond proportion and if he can so push things that a family or family members become abusive, then satan thinks he has won.

He will use anything; birth, gender, conception, character just to get us to be sure God does not want us. If he can find and inspire the other children who will bully us or who will admire us for the bullies we become. If he can find the teacher who shouts or push parents to divorce he will do it. if there is illness and he can find a way to make the child feel to blame or if there is a sibling to quarrel with ; parents who fall out; poverty or just a sense of being different then there is Satan with a plan to make sure that the one thing we never find is the father heart of a loving God.

This means our life view has to change. May I say it again? OUR LIFE VIEW HAS TO CHANGE. Until that happens we are going to continue to believe deep down ( whatever we say), the father of lies.

The good news is that God actually knew about it all along and is planning if we will let him to make some changes. He was never worried about the Father of lies because He knows that he has already defeated him. For every feeling of rejection, lack of self worth, self esteem, self hatred and sheer hurt through Jesus God already provided healing and a way out.

This article is copyright and first appeared in 'Cross Times' in September 2004.

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