And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

Genesis 4:6-8

The first appearance of a man experiencing rejection in the Bible was in Genesis 3.  When the eyes of the couple were opened, they knew that they were naked.  They knew that the state that they were in was insufficient, and they suffered shame.  This was the first rejection.

Shortly after, their son Cain experienced similar rejection.  His offering was not accepted as a way to seek God, and so he was angry and his face downcast.

In both of these cases, the conditions of the rejection were the men’s relationship with God.  In the first, the man lost his fellowship with God, in the second, the other man failed to regain it through an inappropriate offering.

Man cannot be whole without God.  Instead, in His absence, they rely upon each other, turning to religious, political, and demonic arrangements.

Yet, for the believer, in a life with trials, men still face rejection.

Rejection for the unbeliever is natural, just as condemnation, guilt and shame.  Rejection for the believer, then, is not.

For believers, rejection is simply believing someone else’s words over God’s about you.  This is always the root.

Rejection is always a spirit of judgment, because it has to do with what you believe, and that requires a judgment about yourself.

In all honesty, the only release from the spirit of rejection is the release of the spirit of judgment.

Where ever there is rejection, there is always rebellion.  Quite simply, when faced with rejection, one has two choices.  Either don’t believe it, shrivel up into a miserable heap, or retaliate.  There is simply no other way for the human heart to respond.  Which is what makes our choices so important.

If we respond in rebellion and any form of retaliation, either actively or passively, we step into pride.  God always resists the proud, and yet, He gives grace to the humble.

In all honesty, one of the best ways to free yourself from rejection is humility.  When you you connect the irritation to authority or anyone with the feelings of rejection within, you see that one comes from the other.  At that point, you can choose to no longer respond to the rebellious impulses, including the thoughts.

Doing so, then triggers a cascade of responses.  Since you can no longer act out, you are faced with two options.  Either melt into a puddle, which is acceptable, or cry out to God until He reveals the truth.  Either one works.  What also happens is that God actually releases the help that would have been stopped up by any previous rebellion.  God wants to help you, but you have to keep the focus where it belongs, squarely on yourself.

Consider Cain.  God was gracious to Cain, and encouraged him, saying, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?”

The truth is, God wants to help us, but our own reactions often make it hard for us to be helped.  When we step into rebellion, on any level, we are working against God’s ways, and it short-circuits the grace he would give us.  Yet, when we refuse to go in to rebellious ways of thinking, the alternative is to ask God for mercy.  With all the effort we could spend on rebellion, we can go to God and ask Him, beg Him, for His truth.  And, He wants to give it, longs for us to ask, and teaches us to stop looking at the people we think have neglected us and deal with the one thing that’s important–what we believe.

Fear is at the root of rejection.  We are afraid of something.  And, it is always a lie.  And, it is always judgment.

The spirit of judgment is the cause of the fear.  Because of what we believe, we judge ourselves quite often, as well as others.

When we come to issues such as self-rejection, we always come to the issue of self-hate.

And, the simple solution, when it comes to judgment, is simply forgiveness.

Rejection is always judgment.  The way out of that judgment is either a better understanding of the truth, or true forgiveness.  Either work.  It sometimes matters very little whether we understand that actual situation or not, when we choose to forgive, we can no longer hate, including ourselves.

For years, I could not figure out what to do with self-hate.  The solution is actually easier than one might expect.  Forgive yourself, or, put another way, agree with God’s forgiveness of you.  Agree with God.

In any place you have self-hate, you can will yourself to forgive.  The holding onto it is an act of the will, and so is the letting go.  You cannot hold onto it if you do not choose to.

And, in ever personal experience of self hate that I have ever had to let go in this way, while I could not have told you through many hours of counselling WHY I hated myself, the moment I did, all the reasons “why I shouldn’t” instantly came flooding to me.  It really was all right there.  While I spent a few years attempting to understand where all this self-hate was coming from, the moment I simply turned it into forgiveness, it was right in my face.

The thing is, you couldn’t possibly be rejected if you understood where you were really coming from.  But, deception and wounds come in from all sources, and when we believe that are no good, we begin to act on those beliefs.

When you realize there is no other one to please, and no standard to live up to other than Him, your house then becomes built upon the rock.  A house built on the sands of the opinions of others is always shaky, but it is the house that totally settles it worth upon what Christ says about it that remains.

You cannot be controlled if you do not control, and you cannot feel rejection if you do not have something of rejection in you.

The simplest solution to the spirit of rejection is to get rid of the spirit of judgment.  Paul said, the spiritual man judges all things, but is judged by no one.  That is, the one led by the Spirit agrees with what God thinks about things, and judges as he hears, even as Jesus did.  That man is not subject to the opinions of others, and, Paul said, I do not even judge myself.

But, the key is, these are of the Spirit, and not of the flesh!

When we do not walk in our own judgment, but His, because we are Spiritual, we do not control, cannot be controlled, and are free.