Rejection: Satan's Strategy - Part 2

Last week we discussed Satan’s strategy of rejection when trying to keep men and women from responding to the gospel. Satan does not give up on this strategy, however, even after someone has responded to the gospel and become a follower of Jesus.  His strategy of rejection morphs just a little to become a campaign to convince the believer that, although saved, they are still displeasing and unusable to their Father. 

Over the years I have met countless believers who felt disqualified from God’s blessings, God’s best for them, their appointed destiny, or from serving Jesus in significant ways.  They feel they are not spiritual enough, not holy enough, not repentant enough, and even not forgiven enough – as if there are degrees of forgiveness.

Satan, the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10), constantly reminds us of past failures and current weaknesses.  He whispers that our pre-saved sins were covered by the blood of Jesus because we sinned without knowing better.  But now that we are saved, we know better and, therefore, God’s grace is diminished in our lives.  Believe me, in our hearts we “knew better” back then.  David certainly knew better than to commit adultery with Bathsheba and kill her husband. Yet he was forgiven by God.  We continue to feel unclean and undeserving because the enemy keeps throwing mud at us.

What we need to remember is we were saved by grace and continue by grace…not by our own righteousness.  It is not that God doesn’t care about our righteousness, but our relationship with him is secured by the blood of his Son.  The writer of Hebrews said, “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14, emphasis added). 

This verse may seem contradictory at first, but he is reminding us that we already have a secure position with the Father through the sacrifice of his Son.  We have already put on the righteousness of Christ and, therefore, stand before the Father with a position of perfection in Christ.  Notice this is past tense.  We have already been made perfect.  Our legal standing in heaven is perfection in Christ. Our spiritual condition may not coincide with our position, but God is working in us to make us holy.

If we are forgiven, why does God work to make us holy?  First of all, a child’s behavior reflects on his father.  A parent is often judged by how well-behaved, considerate, mature, self-controlled, etc. his or her children are.  As followers of Jesus and children of God, our lives should bring honor to God.  An ancient story tells of a time when Alexander the Great began to hear complaints about one of his officers.  His name was also Alexander but he was dirty, undisciplined, and a drunk.  Alexander the Great met with him and simply said, “Either change your ways or change your name.”  Our lifestyle can reflect on those whose authority we serve under.

In addition, sin is destructive.  Left unfettered, sin will choke out health, goodness, love, joy and every other good thing in your life like invasive weeds in a garden. God loves us too much to leave us to the weeds. Paul wrote, “Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life” (Gal. 6:8). In other words, sin opens the door to the enemy who comes to kill, steal, and destroy. Satan will destroy your physical health, your self-image, your relationships and even your soul, if you keep choosing him.  But the Spirit will impart love, joy, peace, contentment, and so forth when we follow him. God wants the best for us.  But he also knows that sanctification - becoming like Jesus – is a life-long process.  He is patient.  He knows that some of us have more baggage than others and it takes time to empty the baggage car.

Satan works to disrupt the process by making us so constantly aware of our failings that we come to believe we can never be pleasing to God and, therefore, give up trying to grow closer to him or even serve him.  His goal is to create a deep sense of shame in us so that we are convinced we are so defective no one who really knows us could love us…including God.  I like to differentiate a feeling of guilt from shame.  Guilt is a feeling or even a conviction I have done something wrong.  Shame is a feeling that there is something inherently wrong with me.  Shame is harder to deal with because it is my view of who I am.  That is why so many believers will tell you they know God has forgiven them, but they cannot forgive themselves.  They still see themselves as the same person who committed the sin that created their shame.

God does desire that we grow in Christ, bear the fruit of the Spirit, and erase sin from our lives. But the way to grow is not to focus on our weakness and failings of the flesh, but to focus on who we are in Christ.  Graham Cooke once said, “We are obsessed with our sin, but God is obsessed with our righteousness.”  The old adage goes, “We become what we behold.”  In other words, we take on the characteristics of the thing or the person we are most focused on.  If we always focus on our divorce or our abuse, we take on the identity of a divorced person full of pain and brokenness or a victim forever scarred by what others did to us.  We organize our world around the view we hold of ourselves.

There is no need to deny those things happened, but we must focus on who we are in Christ not who we were or what happened back then.  We should focus on what God has done in our life, not what he hasn’t yet done. We are new creations.  So, as children of God, we must learn to always say what God says about who we are in Christ, not what the devil says, our emotions say, or what the other broken people in our lives declare. When we begin to see ourselves as God sees us, our shame begins to evaporate and Satan loses that leverage.

But what about the believer who has wandered away and gotten involved in the world once again?  Satan will rush to tell that person they are no longer welcome in the kingdom of God because they have rejected Christ and gone back to their sinful ways. It is true, there is a warning in Hebrews about rejecting Jesus after being a believer.  It says, “It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance” (Heb. 6:4-6).

Notice, the warning is that they may not be brought back to repentance, not that forgiveness is no longer available. The warning is that we may quench the Holy Spirit long enough and harden our hearts toward God enough, that over time, we can no longer repent because our heart and conscience are calloused.

The parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) makes it clear that the Father is always ready to forgive and restore. The issue was with the son who first rebelled, then indulged, then became desperate, and then was overcome with shame. The text says he “came to his senses” and then decided to return home and throw himself on the mercy of the father.  When he returned his father did not scold or place him on probation.  He rejoiced.  The son could have decided his father would never have him again or could have blamed his father for his condition or simply decided that part of his life was closed to him.  Eventually, he could have arrived at a place where he could never consider going home again.  That is the warning.

Our rebellion and refusal to return indicates a wrong view of our Heavenly Father.  We think he will be a harsh, unforgiving father. As you read through the prophets of the Old Testament, it is amazing how willing God was to take Israel back after years of rebellion and idolatry.  He calls them back over and over again, and asks them to turn their hearts to him again so he could forgive and bless them agian.  How much more would he do so for those in Christ?

But even then, Satan arrives and questions our sincerity, our repentance, our faith, our passion for God and always tells us it is not enough.  We wonder of we were sorry enough for our sins, if we love God enough, or if we have done enough to make up for our failings. Once again, he suggests we have to earn our way to heaven rather than trusting the grace of God and the blood of Jesus to secure our relationship with the Father. 

Satan often preys on our expectation of rejection but that is not who God is.  You are not rejected but loved.  You are not abandoned but secure.  Don’t let Satan cause you to look back or focus on your failures, but discipline yourself to look forward. Look at what God has done, rather than what he has not yet done.  We cannot change ourselves but are simply asked to make ourselves available to Jesus so he can make the changes.  Be in church; be with God’s people; spend time in the word; talk to God; listen for his voice. Remember, by one sacrifice you have been made perfect while he is making you holy.  You don’t have to be enough because Jesus was enough for you.