Life’s trials
To be turned away by someone who should have loved you is one of the deepest hurts there is: a parent who left, a husband or wife who walked out, friends who dropped you, a family that shut the door. It can leave a person feeling worthless. God has something to say to you.
“Though my father and mother forsake me, the LORD will receive me.” (Psalm 27:10)
Why do people reject those they love?
The closest bonds in life can break. Husbands and wives who promised to love for life part in bitterness. Parents fail their children, and children their parents.
The Bible’s explanation is sin. We were made to love God and one another, and we have turned in on ourselves. Even our love is mixed with selfishness. None of this excuses what was done to you. But it does mean that their rejection is a verdict on a broken world. It is not a verdict on your worth.
How can I face rejection?
Begin with what is true about you. You are not rubbish to be thrown away. “God created man in His own image” (Genesis 1:27). Whatever others have said or done, you were made by God and you matter to Him.
Then look at Jesus, for no one understands rejection as He does. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). “He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him” (John 1:11). His friends ran away. And on the cross He cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).
How can the gospel of Christ comfort me?
That cry is the key. Jesus was forsaken so that those who come to Him need never be. He was bearing the sin of others, and the separation from God that sin deserves. He took the rejection that we have earned from God, so that we might be accepted.
This is the comfort the gospel gives. It goes deeper than sympathy. All of us have turned our backs on God, and all of us need to be received by Him. And He receives sinners. Jesus said, “the one who comes to Me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). Come to Him, turning from your sin and trusting Him, and you will not be turned away.
God speaks to His people as a husband to a wife who has been cast off: “the LORD has called you back, like a wife deserted and wounded in spirit” (Isaiah 54:6). “With everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you” (Isaiah 54:8).
If you belong to Christ
Then you have been adopted. God chose to make you His child (Ephesians 1:5), and He will not change His mind. Jesus calls His people friends, and proved it: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).
Some believers are rejected because they follow Christ, by family or by old friends. If that is you, you are walking where your Lord walked. And you have His promise: “Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).
You have also been given a new family. Let the church be that to you, and be that to someone else who is alone.
Scripture quotations are from the Berean Standard Bible (BSB), which is in the public domain. They keep its American spelling.