Four Ways Rejection Can Benefit Us
Rejection can benefit us because it impacts our spiritual growth. We partner with God when we say yes to walking in his ways and resisting the devil. As we continue from part 1 of Four Ways Rejection Can Be Good [insert link], we explore the ways we can use rejection for our benefit.
Rejection can benefit us because it leads to refinement.
Refinement comes through rejection. Hebrews 12:1-2 talks about throwing off the things that hinder so that we “can run with endurance the race that is set before us.” The power of a no means that we reject things like doubt, slander, or our most troublesome, sidetracking sins. When we reject these tendencies, we grow spiritually.
Refinement happens step by step as we fix our eyes on Jesus and his example of perseverance and victory. We run the race of life and encounter hardships along the way. Some we create and some we experience as consequences to another’s actions. Will we be bitter and resentful? That’s an internal response which can translate to a negative viewpoint, but we can reject those thought patterns. Instead, we can view them through God’s lens of “What does he want to do in this situation and how will he reveal his glory.”
Other hardships originate from within us because we entertain thoughts which lead to sinful choices, which lead to consequences that we must bear. A careless word struck at the right- wrong moment can leave devastating consequences in a relationship. Turning our back on the Lord’s promised faithfulness because we struggle with his supposed silence can lead us down a path away from God’s best for us. We can choose to reject the temptations that pull us away from spiritual maturity. This is how rejection can be good when we use it as a tool for growth.
Rejection can benefits us because it teaches us about resistance.
We are in a war that takes place in the outskirts of what we can see with our physical eyes—a spiritual war. God has an enemy and that enemy attacks us. He studies us and knows our weaknesses, but we are not weaponless. When Jesus is our Lord and Savior and we have confessed with our mouth and believed in our heart that he is Lord, our weapon is the name of Jesus.
We can speak the name of Jesus over our lives and reject Satan’s attacks. We don’t have to succumb. We are not powerless, we are powerful, not because of who we are, but because of who is in us. Use rejection to resist him. The enemy of our soul wants nothing more than to beat us down, wear us out, and fill our heads with lies to render us ineffective and impotent. Rejection can be good when we use it to resist these attacks of the enemy.
I know rejection hurts, especially when it comes from an unexpected place or person who you thought was safe. Sometimes the people and circumstances in our lives become the most important thing to us. But our hope is in God alone, not people or circumstances and sometimes rejection can be good because it can point our hope to the One who promises never to leave us or forsake us.
Will you let God show you how rejection can be good?
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose,” Romans 8:28, ESV.
