Accepted in the Beloved

To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. EPHESIANS 1:6

Derek Prince spent much of his ministry among people in pain, and he came to believe that one of the deepest and most widespread wounds in the human heart is rejection. His short book God’s Remedy for Rejection grew out of years of counselling and prayer with men and women who, whatever their outward success, carried a settled conviction that they were unwanted. It is one of his gentlest books, and one of the most widely helpful.

The wound beneath the wounds

Prince observed that rejection often begins early — in a child who was unwanted, in a home where love was withheld, in a family where one parent left, in a school where a child was mocked or excluded. It can come later too: through divorce, betrayal, or the slow discovery that one does not belong. He noticed that it frequently lay underneath other struggles that seemed to have nothing to do with it — anger, perfectionism, an inability to receive love, a craving for approval, a tendency to reject others before they could reject oneself.

He also noticed that rejected people often find it hardest of all to believe that God accepts them. They can believe He exists. They can believe He forgives. But they cannot believe He wants them. They transfer to God the face of the father who was absent or cold.

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. PSALM 27:10

The rejected Saviour

Prince’s remedy was, characteristically, the cross. He saw in the sufferings of Jesus not only the bearing of sin but the bearing of rejection. The Lord was rejected by His own people, deserted by His friends, and at the last cut off from the Father’s presence.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. ISAIAH 53:3

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? MARK 15:34

Here the divine exchange of chapter five reaches its tenderest point. Jesus endured the rejection of the Father, so that we might be received as sons and daughters. He was cast out, so that we might be brought in. Paul’s phrase in Ephesians — accepted in the beloved — was for Prince the key. We are not accepted because we have finally become acceptable. We are accepted in Christ, the Beloved Son, and we share in the welcome the Father gives to Him.

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God. 1 JOHN 3:1

Steps towards healing

Prince did not present healing from rejection as a single moment, though he believed it could begin in one. He described a series of steps, and they are among the most practical things he wrote.

First, recognise the problem. Many people have never named what has shaped them. To see that one has been living out of rejection is itself a beginning.

Second, forgive those who rejected you. Prince was uncompromising here. Forgiveness is not a feeling but a decision; it is not saying that what was done did not matter, but releasing the person to God. He believed that unforgiveness keeps the wound open and poisons the one who holds it.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. EPHESIANS 4:31–32

Third, lay down resentment and rebellion, including resentment against God for the circumstances of one’s life.

Fourth, believe and receive God’s acceptance — not as a feeling to be waited for, but as a fact declared in His Word, to be thanked for until the feelings follow.

Fifth, accept yourself, as God has accepted you. Prince did not mean that a believer should approve of his sin. He meant that he should stop rejecting the person God has made and redeemed.

Finally, move on into fellowship. The rejected person tends to withdraw. But God heals in the family of His people, and part of the cure is learning to receive and give love among them.

Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. ROMANS 15:7

A word of caution

Prince sometimes connected the deeper forms of rejection with the deliverance ministry discussed in chapter ten, speaking of spirits that might attach themselves to a wounded person. Readers who have weighed that chapter will apply the same cautions here. A wound is not a demon, and a hurting person should not be made to feel that he is inhabited by something evil because he was unloved as a child. Most of the healing Prince describes needs nothing more than the gospel, forgiveness, time, patient friendship, and — where it is needed — skilled help.

It is also worth saying that self-acceptance is not the heart of the gospel. The heart of the gospel is that God accepts sinners in Christ. Self-acceptance, rightly understood, is simply agreeing with God about that. Prince would have said the same.

The Father who runs

The great picture of this teaching is the father in the parable, who sees his son a great way off and runs.

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. LUKE 15:20

The son had rehearsed a speech about being made a hired servant. He never finished it. The father interrupted him with a robe, a ring and a feast. That is the welcome waiting for every rejected soul who comes home.

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. JOHN 6:37

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask God quietly to show you whether rejection has shaped your life, and where it began. Write down what comes to mind.

2. Name one person whose rejection has wounded you. Choose, before God, to forgive them. Say so aloud in prayer, and repeat it whenever the old bitterness returns.

3. Read Ephesians 1:3–6 each morning this week, and thank God for each thing He says He has done for you in Christ.

4. Consider whether you have been rejecting others to protect yourself. Take one step of openness towards someone this week.

5. If your wound is deep, seek a wise, mature Christian or a trained counsellor to walk with you. Healing in fellowship is part of God’s design.

A PRAYER

Father, I have believed You exist and I have believed You forgive, but I have found it hard to believe You want me. Forgive my unbelief, and heal my heart.

Thank You that Jesus was rejected so that I might be accepted, and that in Him I am received as a child of Your house.

I choose to forgive those who rejected me. I lay down my resentment against them, and against You. I accept the person You have made and redeemed.

Run to meet me, Father, as You promised. And make me one who runs to meet others. Amen.