I am one of those people who struggles with fears. In fact, I am reading through the last chapter of Freedom From Fear by Neil Anderson and Rich Miller. Excellent book!
God has been working on me to bring healing from these fears. It’s a fight though. It’s a fight for me to choose to want to walk in the truth and to fight the fears/lies. It means allowing God to reveal the truth to me instead of just accepting the lie or surrendering to the lie.
One of my fears I have struggled with is the fear of rejection.
- It’s that fear that causes us to pathetically try to please everyone, to the loss of our own dignity in Christ.
- It’s that fear that causes us to avoid those we presume or perceive will reject us.
- It’s that fear that causes us to withhold transparency from others and to have difficulty admitting true faults.
- It’s that fear that causes us to be overly sensitive to the way others treat us or our perception of the way they are treating us.
Fear of rejection not only causes the individual to have a hard time admitting faults, but that individual may admit to silly, surface issues to distract from the true issue(s) to make it appear like there is honesty and repentance.
Where there is a strong problem with fear of rejection, the individual will have difficulty taking responsibility for wrong actions and attitudes and will avoid repentance.
You can recognize a person who is growing in grace by their willingness to be transparent. This doesn’t mean “airing dirty laundry”, but this means that person will share with humility and honesty personal examples of how God is working in their own lives.
Fear of rejection is also a root cause of most self-centered people. When one is consumed with fears of rejection, it is almost impossible to truly reach out to others and to be willing to listen to them when we are self-absorbed by our own constant need for affirmation and validation.
The person who fears rejection will constantly be looking for affirmation from others.
The root cause of the fear of rejection is based on a lie.
All areas of spiritual bondage are always based on a lie we have believed about God. The lie in this case can be rooted in past hurts. Those past hurts may have caused us to then associate those painful circumstances or harmful earthly relationships with a faulty belief about God.
The faulty beliefs about God may be that God is uncaring, distant, disinterested, stern, demanding, passive, cold, insensitive… Those are the lies.
In order to have freedom, we need to first recognize a wrong belief we have about God.
The truths (answers to those lies) regarding God are the following, taken from Freedom From Fear, by Neil Anderson and Rich Miller:
I joyfully accept the truth that my Father God is…
- intimate and involved (Psalms 139:1-18)
- kind and compassionate (Psalms 103: 8-14)
- accepting and filled with joy and love (Romans 15:7; Zephaniah 3:17)
- warm and affectionate (Isaiah 40:11; Hosea 11:3.4)
- always with me and eager to be with me (Hebrews 13:5; Jeremiah 31:20; Ezekiel 34:11-16)
- patient and slow to anger (Exodus 34:6; 2 Peter 3:9)
- loving, gentle, and protective of me (Jeremiah 31:3; Isaiah 42:3; Psalm 18:2)
- trustworthy and wants to give me a full life; His will is good, perfect, and acceptable (Lamentations 3:22, 23; John 10:10; Romans 12:1-2)
- full of grace and mercy; He gives me freedom to fail (Hebrews 4:15-16; Luke 15:11-16)
- tenderhearted and forgiving; His heart and arts are always open to me (Psalm 130:1-4; Luke 15:17-24)
- committed to my growth and proud of me as His growing child (Romans 8:28-29; Hebrews 12:5-11; 2 Corinthians 7:4)
In order to be healed from the fear of rejection, you must accept the truth and choose to reject the corresponding lie regarding God. This has to be a constant practice because the lies can quickly “crop up” in our lives, bringing us back into bondage again. When there is a long-term habit of believing a pattern of specific lies, it will take a long-term commitment and practice of learning to reject those lies and accept the truth in regards to those lies in order to find healing.
Freedom can and will occur as we begin to accept the truth and reject the lies.
“Every Christian needs to learn that Christ is the only defense he or she needs. Realizing that you are already forgiven and accepted by God through Christ will help free you up to place all your dependence on Him.” — from Freedom From Fear
Learning to walk in freedom from the fear of rejection is still something I am learning. I have much more to learn, but I can truthfully and joyfully say that by God’s grace, I am growing in this area. One of the most freeing areas for me is that I have such a different concept of God than what I had a decade ago. Not fearing God’s rejection of me means that I actually find it a happy thought when God convicts me. I am not happy about the sin, but I am thankful He is convicting me because it means that God’s Spirit is working in me and because He loves me enough to want me to grow more and more into His image.
“How Can It Be”
Ashamed of what I’ve done, what I’ve become
These hands are dirty
I dare not lift them up to the Holy OneYou plead my cause, you right my wrongs
You break my chains, you overcome
You gave your life, to give me mine
You say that I am free
How can it be? Yeah
How can it be? YeahI’ve been hiding
Afraid I’ve let you down
Inside I doubt, that you still love me
But in your eyes, there’s only grace now
You plead my cause, you right my wrongs
You break my chains, you overcome
You gave your life, to give me mine
You say that I am free
How can it be? Yeah
How can it be? Yeah
Though I fall, you can make me new
From this death, I will rise with you
Oh, the grace reaching out for me, yeah
How can it be, how can it be?
You plead my cause, you right my wrongs
You break my chains, you overcome
You gave your life, to give me mine
You say that I am free, yeah
You plead my cause, you right my wrongs
You break my chains, you overcome
You gave your life, to give me mine
You say that I am free
How can it be? Yeah
How can it be? Yeah
by Lauren Daigle
Grace In The Moment 