I used to be so afraid of rejection. People pleasing had me wrapped up in chains. I used to feel the need to protect my own reputation because I was obsessed with people liking me, but then I realized that I was literally living or dying for people's approval. It made me compromise, or at least it tempted me hardcore to compromise. Now whoever can think whatever of me because my job is to love God with my whole heart and then to love my neighbor as myself, that love is always intentional about sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ and discipling people in his way and his teachings. I've been set free from the fear of rejection, and now rejection no longer holds me in chains. It's not me that they rejected but Christ in me.
Jesus said "As you enter the house, give it your greeting. If the house is worthy, see that your blessing of peace comes upon it. But if it is not worthy, take back your blessing of peace, and whoever does not receive you nor listen to your words, as you leave that house or city, shake the dust off your feet."
Matthew 10:12-14
In another place he says: "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law and a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it and whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.The one who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and the one who receives a righteous person because he is a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward. Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me."
Be careful when you reject the one sent to you. "Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves". In the end, many of us will have to answer for the way we treated Jesus Christ when he came to us through someone we simply ended up refusing to listen to.
🔥❤️🔥