Joy in Rejection???

            Have you had your Joy Juice today?  Don’t save it for special occasions only! It’s what we need every day of the year.

             During Christmas we talk a lot about the birth of a baby named Jesus. But let’s not forget that baby soon grew into a man….and he went about teaching people “truth”.  Luke 4:14-15 tells us: “Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.  He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.”

            If we were to stop reading there, we might think that everyone loved Jesus….that everywhere he went, people thought he was wonderful and believed that He was who he said he was. BUT, when we continue to read in that very same chapter of Luke, we find that when he went “home”…to Nazareth where he had been brought up as a young boy…he was rejected.

            Have you ever felt rejected?  Rejection is hard to accept.  It hurts.  It crushes our spirit.  We begin to doubt our self-worth. When we find ourselves in this unfortunate state of rejection, let’s think of Jesus and know that He truly understands.

Isaiah 53:3 tells us: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”

Where’s the joy in rejection? It’s found in the truth that Jesus understands our hurt and that HE will never leave us or forsake us!