“No.,” is a complete sentence. It does not require justification or explanation.
~ Megan LeBoutillier
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is Mine; therefore I said that He will take what is Mine and declare it to you….“Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see Me, and again a little while and you will see Me’? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. In that day you will ask nothing of Me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He will give it to you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
~ Jesus, King of The Universe, in John 16
Oh beloved, it is true. We are more than able to take our cues about who we are from many places. We can listen to any number of people and their opinions about who we are, and how much value we hold in their eyes. And unfortunately, we not only take a cue, we make it part of who we are.
People say things and we believe
People treat us badly and we hurt
People reject us and we think our stock has dropped
People injure us and we believe we are victims
Oh yes, it is true that we live in a shadowland, full of sorrows and death and destruction. There is about us a terrible mess. And while the Kingdom is among it, and is a great source of Light in the darkness, the fallenness all about us is very real.
However, the problem being addressed here is not the fallenness of the world. The problem is that we grant the fallen authority that it does not – and they do not – have. We are, each of us who have been made alive in Christ through faith, not liable to the libel and slander of the world.
We are, to put it simply, to Live free of what others think of us and Live above the circumstances that reject us. And this is not because we develop some sort of hard, non-loving shell to keep people from hurting us. No, it is because we have come to learn a core truth.
People cannot reject you, because they cannot accept you.
Yeah, this fool of a writer just said that. People do not have the authority to reject that which has already been approved by The Highest Authority. And people can, in no way, validate the acceptance we have in Him. They can add nothing to it, and they can take nothing away.
Can we see it? Hopefully. Once again, most of us are listening to the collusive rebellion of the forces of evil, this fallen world, and our already-dead flesh. There is absolutely no need for it. We are exceedingly wonderful beings in Christ. And as such we are free from the need to be accepted or liked or approved or anything – ever again. Because, it is already finished. We are already in the place we are trying to find when we give in to listening the voices that want to drag us down.
So, are you feeling the drag on your sense of value? Are you giving away your sense of who you are, on some altar of popularity or acceptance? Tonight is the night to say an exceedingly simple thing to the voices: “No.”
Jesus showed us this in His Life. He gloried in His relationship with His Father. Nothing else mattered but following His Dad’s leading and staying in deep communion with Him. And He showed us that no one (read ever) can take this joy away from us. And so, when it happens, let us not think we lost it, or it was taken from us… No, we just gave it away.
Take it back beloved. G_d gave it to you. You have been bought at an infinite price, and everything you want and need from Him is yours for the taking.
