Rejection – Being a Pilgrim

“Do not hide your face from me, do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Saviour. Though my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will receive me.”
Psalm 27:9-10 NIVUK

Being rejected is a terrible thing to happen to a person, especially if the rejection comes from loved ones such as one’s parents. David asked the Lord not to hide His face from him. The NLT’s version reads, “Do not turn Your back on me”, but the Bible translations all provide a record of an appeal from David against his perception that he was being rejected. As we read on, David sets an order of priorities, with the acceptance by the Lord being even more important than acceptance by his parents. But why would the Lord turn David “away in anger”? Perhaps David was having a wobbly moment, when he wondered about his status in God. He knew he was a sinner. He knew that he was imperfect and prone to do things that would displease the Lord. Things that might have been so bad that he feared the Lord would be angry with him. But in spite of his status as King of Israel he came before God as a servant, reminding Him that in the past He has been his Helper.

It is a fact today, as it has always been when human beings have been around, that God gets angry with His created peoples. This is not because He is a petulant Being, taking the huff when rejected. God is omnipotent of course, and not reliant on human behaviour. God is perfection, in terms of love, grace, holiness, righteousness, justice, and so on, and He will become angry with anything that violates His character. In Isaiah 55:8-9 we read, ““My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts”“. Paul wrote about why God could get angry. Romans 1:18, “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness”. We therefore get an insight into what David was so concerned about. Perhaps he had done something that was so bad that he feared that God was angry with him. Of course, we know about the affair with Bathsheba, where David broke three commandments at the same time. Did that make God angry with him? As Isaiah wrote, it is difficult for human beings to understand what God is thinking about them, and that made David rather anxious and fearful about God’s response to him. So he did the only thing he knew how – he came to the Lord with a servant heart. After Bathsheba David wrote another Psalm, which starts, “Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sins” (Psalm 51:1). David prayed for God not to ” … banish [him] from [His] presence …” (Psalm 51:11), for forgiveness (verse 14) and for restoration (verse 12). But the focus in this Psalm was in the way David came before the Lord – Psalm 51:16-17, “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise“.

In the Old Testament days, time and again the Jews rebelled against God and He became angry with them. They were warned, as we read in Deuteronomy 11:16-17, “But be careful. Don’t let your heart be deceived so that you turn away from the Lord and serve and worship other gods. If you do, the Lord’s anger will burn against you. He will shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and the ground will fail to produce its harvests. Then you will quickly die in that good land the Lord is giving you“. We know what happened to the Jews, with punishments such as being exiled and there were others, individually and for the nation as a whole. In those days, the human propensity to commit sin and rebel against God prevailed. But God was merciful to them and His love always prevailed.

Fast forward to the New Testament and we read in John the Baptist’s introduction to Jesus about yet another example of God’s love, this time through His Son, Jesus. “And anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life. Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s angry judgment” (John 3:36). A stark choice for humanity, and we see the love that Jesus had for mankind manifested in human form as He walked the paths of this world. As I have written many times before, we live in a season of grace, where God is holding back the consequences of His anger with evil and wickedness until the time comes to proclaim judgement. John 3:16 is a verse that seals the fate of unbelievers everywhere and at anytime across the ages because it determines which path a person takes after death.

David knew in his spirit that God’s anger would be a terrible thing to face into, and he feared God’s rejection above all else. He needed God in his life above all else and he prayed that God would not leave him, forsake him or reject him. And at the end of Psalm 27:10 he received the assurance he was looking for – “the Lord will receive me”. What a relief! Blessed assurance! Are we pilgrims unsure about God’s feelings for us? We needn’t worry at all because of Jesus. Paul wrote, “So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death” (Romans 8:1-2). And in Romans 8:10, “And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God”. God hasn’t rejected us. In fact He provided a way back to Him through Jesus, regardless of how far we have fallen into sin. What a wonderful and loving God we serve.

Dear Heavenly Father. We know You are always there and You never reject us. Please forgive us for the times when we have rejected You, and we pray that You “renew a right spirit” with us. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.

“Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But you haven’t believed in me even though you have seen me. However, those the Father has given me will come to me, and I will never reject them.”
John 6:35-37 NLT

The eternal nature of Jesus’s claim about being the bread of life was largely missed by His listeners on this occasion. His message of eternal life and the miraculous signs that He committed made no difference to the majority of the people of His day. All they were interested in was having the opportunity to receive another free meal. In common with their ancestors, they could not see beyond their immediate physical needs, and, worse, they preferred to continue in their lives of sin. But there was a ray of hope splitting the darkness of rejection – there were people who God had called to His Son’s side, and Jesus said He would never reject them. We know who these people were because they formed the bedrock of the church. The twelve disciples, later to be called Apostles, spent three years with Jesus, being taught by Him and prepared for a lifetime of service.

But there were others too who joined and followed Him, and who are still coming to Him even today. Men, women and children who have heard the Heavenly call and who proclaim their belief in Jesus. Paul wrote His Ephesian letter with the following two verses near its beginning. “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure” (Ephesians 1:4-5). God is a meticulous planner, able to bring about the minutest detail in His creative plans. God didn’t just create the world and then walk away, leaving mankind to get on with living on it. As part of His creation He could see the time when His Son Jesus would walk its paths as a human being, sharing God’s plans with the men and women of His day, and God knew in advance those who would follow His Son, making a choice to respond to the call stirring within them.

But is this not a contentious thought, that God has a special plan for individual people? Does that not imply rejection of the rest? At the end of the parable of the Great Feast, Jesus made the statement “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). God does not have favourites and there is what some have called level ground at the foot of the Cross. Everyone is called to be part of God’s Kingdom, but only a few make the life changes necessary to become “chosen”. In the Parable I have just referred to, the Master of the banquet sent out invitations to come to the feast, and we read in Matthew 22:10, “So the servants brought in everyone they could find, good and bad alike, and the banquet hall was filled with guests”. The story continues with the King meeting all those at the banquet but finding someone not wearing the proper clothes. This was a man who somehow had come to enjoy the occasion but had not made any preparations for life in God’s Kingdom. Sadly, he was still wearing the filthy rags of sin, not realising that there will only be pure and holy people who eat at God’s table.

The message of this Parable was clear. All of mankind have an opportunity to respond to God by believing in His Son, Jesus. But there is then a follow up choice to be made before the belief in Jesus can lead to being chosen as one of His children. The man at the banquet had made no attempt to repent of his sins and come to Jesus, and by doing so replacing his filthy rags with garments whiter than white. Isaiah 1:18-19, ”“Come now, let’s settle this,” says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool. If you will only obey me, you will have plenty to eat“”. So we pilgrims ask ourselves, as we look in a mirror reflecting what is inside our souls, what colour are my garments? Red or white? If we make the right choice, to believe in Jesus, then there will be an amazing transformation affecting our clothes. Our seats at the Heavenly banquet will have our names on them, because Jesus will never reject us.

Father God. When we first came to You, our clothes were totally unsuitable for Your Son’s wedding reception, but through Your grace and love, You have dressed us in clothes of white. We worship You today, deeply grateful for Your mercy. Amen.