Gregory Dickow - Uprooting the Spirit of Rejection
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Well, today, I want to talk to you about the solution to all of man's problems. That's right. All of man's problems can be summarized in one word. And today we're going to deal with that one word, that one thing that is causing our fears, our anxieties, anger, addictions, depression and so much more. Most of us on the surface try to resist and fight the temptation to be afraid, to be angry, to be anxious. We fight and we try to overcome addictions or depression, but we're just dealing with the root of the problem. And no matter how much bad fruit we pluck, the root keeps feeding the branches with more bad fruit.
You see, the universal root to all of man's problems is found in one word rejection. Mankind lives rejected. That feeling of shame, embarrassment, that feeling of being unaccepted and often unloved. Deep down in our soul, rejection is also our greatest fear. We go to great lengths to be accepted and to avoid rejection. And this is the strong man that Jesus talked about in Mark three twenty seven. And once that strong man is bound, we can plunder all his possessions. Once we attack this root of rejection, we can see all that's been stolen from us, restored all this, been damaged, healed and truly live the life of radical acceptance that God created us for. Are you ready for that? Check this out.
Let's talk about. The route for a moment. The word root means a starting point, this is where it starts from the point of origin. It's the first growth from the seed, we know that seeds are buried in the ground, they germinate and roots develop and go down before the fruit and branches are ever seen above the ground. That's how it works. So a route of rejection varied from your upbringing, from many sources and many causes that produce rejection. And first of all, it comes from the devil. But secondly, it comes from people and it comes from life experiences, comes from what we go through in life, comes through, look, rejection is going to come to us all.
And rejection doesn't rejection doesn't have the power to destroy us. But it's how we react and respond to rejection that determines whether it's going to destroy us or whether it's going to have no affect, no ill effect on our lives, because the spirit seat being rejected is going to happen to all of us. But being controlled by that rejection doesn't have to have control over us. We don't have to be controlled by it's the spirit of rejection that we want to deal with, the root of rejection that we want to deal with. And then when people reject you, you see when you have that root in you, when any whenever you feel rejected by somebody, you recoil and you you want to avoid and you want to run from it because and you think that's the source of the problem. They rejected me and that's why I feel this way. But the truth is, the spirit of rejection is why you feel this way. And all somebody did was touched the nerve and you and then the root system felt it because that's what's rooted inside of you.
So when someone mistreats you, when someone talks about you, when someone says something or does something or somebody neglects you in some way or walks by and doesn't say hi, all of a sudden your spirit of rejection begins to rear its ugly head and project upon the other person that they're the source of it. When, in truth, life is going to reject you and people are going to reject you, people are going to say no to you if you've ever been in sales, if you've ever tried to date somebody, if you're going to you're going to be rejected at times. You're going to hear no, sometimes. But but it will not affect you. If the root has been uprooted and you're no longer controlled by that thing. Somebody can reject you and you're like, hey, no problem, go on to the next person. Oh, he didn't like me. So what? His loss. Somebody else is better for me waiting out there. I got somebody good coming my way. Some better man is coming from that man. If he rejected me, that's his problem. Forget him.
Have you ever said, "I feel sad or I feel so lonely or I feel so depressed"? You fill in the blank. "I feel so", whatever. "I feel so mad. I feel so angry. Oh, I feel like I got to get back at that or I feel so lonely or feel so discouraged. And I don't know why I feel this and I don't know why I feel this all the time and I don't know why". And so life begins its search to deal with that feeling and to drug that feeling or to or to mask that feeling, to cover up that feeling, get rid of that feeling. Stop feeling that I got to feel something else. I've got to subdue that feeling. I've got to I've got to get rid of that feeling or I've got to attach that feeling to somebody else and give blame for why I feel this way, because of what they did or what they said or what she said or what he did.
And we begin to deal with the feeling the wrong way, the feelings of, oh, I feel sad all the time. I don't know why. I feel mad all the time. I don't know why I feel lonely a lot. I don't know why I feel depressed. I don't know why. I'm smiling on the outside, but I'm crying on the inside and I don't know why. Until we. Get to the root of that. Until we can answer the why. All we'll ever do is live our lives to cover up those feelings. Or to pacify them or to justify them or to fix blame to somebody else for why we feel that way, and then little by little, we cut everyone out of our lives who made us feel that way. And then we never have anybody in our lives and we are lonely and we are now living in the very thing we were most fearful of being alone. Now we end up living in the very thing that we were most fearful of being depressed.
Now we live the rest of our lives in the very thing that we feared the most, being mad and angry all the time, being unhappy and being miserable all the time. Why? Because we're dealing with the feelings and we're trying to cover up the feeling rather than recognizing the feeling is the cry of a root. And if we hear the cry of that root, we can get to that root and uprooted. And the root is rejection. The root is rejection. I'm here to tell you the root is rejection. You go out of here and you think, know the root, is this the root? Is that the root of this is that I'm here to tell you, I've studied it. I've prayed about it. I've found it in the Bible. I've seen it in my life. I've seen it in every person's life that I've ever talked to, ever counseled, ever answered questions to its rejection, its rejection.
Anger is the fruit of rejection. Lust is the fruit of rejection. So if you go around living your life to try to get rid of my anger, get rid of my lust, get rid of my this, get rid of my depression, get rid of my sadness, get rid of my loneliness, you will be frustrated and disappointed the rest of your life. But if you realize those are just fruits, I'm not going to worry about the fruit level. I'm going to deal with it at the root level. And the root is rejection. I'm a pull that sucker out. I'm going to pull that sucker out and I'm going to watch the fruit die and I'm going to laugh as the fruit of lust dies, as the fruit of anger shrivels up and dies, as the fruit of rebellion shrivels up and dies as the fruit of disappointment shrivels up and dies. All of these as the fruit of anxiety shrivels up and dies. I'm going to laugh at its death. I'm going to laugh as it as it as the fruit begins to get brown and old and shriveled up and and moldy. I'm going to watch it die. I'm going to watch it then fall helplessly to the ground and become the dung of the earth. And I'm going to laugh at this destruction the way it laughed at me as it mocked me and made me feel rejected all the days of my life.
Are you with me here, am I in the right place? Am I in the right place here today? Now, now there are four primary fruits. To rejection, and we go through as fast as I can. No one doubt and fear when we doubt that we're loved, we become afraid that we won't be loved. And so we live an anxious life like I need somebody to love me. I go, I wonder if I'm ever going to be loved. So we live in anxiety. Anxiety is the result of not being secure in God's love anxiety. Listen to me. Anxiety is the result of not being secure in God's love. Anxiety, we feel anxious, we feel worried, see if you're secure in God's love, you know that if he took care of the lilies of the field in the birds of the air, how much more will he take care of you? You are worth so much more than the lilies of the field in the birds of the air.
You see, being secure in God's love takes worry away no to the second fruit of rejection. These are primary now. There are other things, but these are the primary ones. Anger. Anger at who, anger at whoever you feel, rejected by anger at God. Anger at others. Anger at yourself. And what does that cause? It causes you to reject others. When you feel rejected and you feel angry, you when you feel rejected, you will then feel anger. And that anger projected on others will cause you to reject them. And they won't want to be around you.
Number three, self pity. Self-pity. Self-pity is the fruit, when you feel rejected, you will always feel sorry for yourself. How they treat me that way, how could they treat me that way? How come they didn't include me? How come nobody called me? How come nobody text me? Nobody loves me. Nobody self-pity, feeling sorry for myself. What happens to a person who feels sorry for themselves? They're depressed all the time. Depressed, they're sad, and you know what else, they have very shallow relationships, their relationships are shallow, the way they relate to people in the way they talk to people, shallow, there's no depth because they're afraid of what's inside. They're afraid of the monster that they can't name. They don't know the monster is rejection. And so we live shallow because I don't want to trigger something in you and I don't want to trigger what's in me. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, I can't explain it. I just don't want to trigger it. So I'm going to live on the surface level.
And that comes from the spirit of rejection. And that's why we have superficial relationships with at times and with most of our relationships when we're when we're dealing with that spirit of rejection and you might think you have really healthy relationships, but they're they're healthy because they're not abusive or they're healthy because you don't yell and scream at each other. They're healthy because you think, hey, we at least have peace. But it's only because you're on the surface of all your relationships, because, you know, underneath there is this root that is just waiting to erupt and you don't want to ever erupt. Make it erupt.
And number four is denial, denial, this is the fruit of rejection we deny, we deny, we deny could even put it to you this way. People that can't be confronted, people that if you say something to them to correct them, they can't take it. They crumble at any criticism. They crumble when you confront them. They crumble when you when you challenge them, they crumble when you point something out because they're already crippled on the inside by the spirit of rejection. And so when you correct them, they interpret correction as rejection. They interpret a strong word of of of of challenge as rejection. They interpret anything that you don't like about them as rejection.
So if somebody says, well, how do you you know, how do you like don't open the door if you're not ready to be to deal with rejection. If you haven't dealt with the with the spirit of rejection, you can't even ask somebody, how do you like my hair? How do you like what I'm wearing? How do you like this? How do you like how do you like the job I did on that? And you're you're what you're really saying is, like my hair. Like what I did, like what I said, like what I posted, like the picture of me, like like like me. Love, love, love me like like like me. And as soon as they give any hint of not loving you and being oh my God, you are Jesus himself. You're like, oh, you rejected me, you don't love me enough, you don't do this enough for me, you don't do this enough for me. You must see me this way. You must see me that way.
Don't set yourself up for that then, darling. Deal with that root man, then people can say anything. And it won't bother you? Oh, man, I'm way behind, way behind. Does this make any sense to anybody? So the definition for rejection is simple. When you're wrongly hurt by words, by actions or by the neglect of other people, when you're wrongly hurt by their actions, by their words or by their neglect, it might not even be intentional. They just neglected to say hi. They neglected to say I love you. They neglected to say they neglected to say how great you are and their neglect. Parents neglect their children. And as a result of the neglecting, it causes the child to begin to view life through the eyes of rejection and needing for the rest of his life or her life to perform in order to get the acceptance because it didn't come for free. So I must have to pay for it, is what our thoughts are. It didn't come for free, so I must have to pay for it. It didn't come for free, so I must have to do something to get it.
The devil is the ultimate source of rejection. God rejected him out of heaven when he was Lucifer in Ezekiel twenty twenty eight, verse 14 through 16, God rejected him from heaven. And he said, You know what? I might be miserable, but I'm not going to be alone. I'm bringing Eve into this thing with me. I'm bringing Eve into this rejection with me. I'm bringing Adam into this rejection with me. I'm bringing Cain into this rejection with with me so that Cain will kill Abel. I'm going to bring all the people that are born after Adam and Eve. I'm going to bring them into the spirit of rejection with me. Since I've been rejected by God, I'm going to make sure they feel rejected by God. And that's been Satan's plan from the beginning of man's creation.
So how do we get to the root of rejection and start living free? How do we get to the root of being supersensitive all the time, which is a fruit of rejection, being being super touchy, skeptical, rebellious, argumentative, stubborn, fighting all the time, condemning ourselves, sad, condemning others, always seeking approval, depressed, lonely, despairing? I'm not trying to paint a bad picture here. I'm just trying to paint a real one so that you get so that we get out of denial and we realize, yeah, I get angry a lot easily. I get this a lot easily. And instead of trying to live up here dealing with this fruit stuff, let's get to the root of the thing and uproot it once and for all. You're with me?
So how do we get to the root and start living free? Because roots feed us whatever they are made of and they carry either a truth or a lie, which will determine either the health or the sickness of our soul. So what do we need since route's feed, what they are made of? We need to identify with a new route. We got to stop identifying with the route of rejection and start identifying with the route of love. We need to understand the real route in our life that God puts there when we're born again is Love and Ephesians three seventeen B says May you be rooted. Amplified Bible may be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love. May you be rooted deep in love and founded securely on love. Everybody say may you be rooted deep in love and found it securely on love.
We need to embrace the new route. We need to identify with the new route. And we need to say I'm not born of that spirit of rejection anymore. I'm born of the root of love. I am loved by God. I am accepted by God. I am his beloved child. Like somebody spoke out prophetically and said, You are my son and I approve of you. You are my son and I am pleased with you. That's what God says about us. We are his beloved children. We are the love of his life. We are the love of his soul. We are his favorite child. We are man. If you want to know what God puts on his Facebook page, it's you. What God puts on his Instagram, it's you. What God puts on Snapchat is, hey, everybody, I just want you to know about my child Jill over there. Well, you know about my child Billy over there. I want to know about my child, Matthew's love over there. I want to know about my child to quit over there. I want you to know I love my children.
We've got to meditate on the love of God. We got to know that we are so loved God, so loved the world. Number two, we've got to get this. You are chosen you've been chosen by God. Ephesians one for says you have been chosen by God. In fact, he says you were chosen by God before the world began, before the foundation of the world. You have been chosen in him before the foundation of the world. When the world was created and man was created, man received the spirit of rejection. But before the rejection came in, man was already accepted and chosen by God.
And so we have to do is we have to identify with our first creation, not the recreation of Genesis, but the creation before the foundation of the world. I know that that's like a crazy thought, but we got to stop referencing our life from the time we were born and start referencing because what do you think of when you look at your life and you look at what made you who you are, you look at everything that's happened since you've been born and we've got to stop referencing from that point of view. We've got to start referencing from before the foundation of the world, when he chose us, when he loved us, before the foundation of the world, and he chose us before the foundation of the world. He loved you. He chose you. He knew you before the foundation of the world. And he destined you to walk with him before the foundation of the world. He predestined you to be adopted as its child, before the foundation of the world.
That's why the Lamb of God was slain before the foundation of the world, so that you could have your point of reference, not from what's happened to you since you were born, which is this this era, this epoch of time, but rather that you would make your point of reference from life, from before you were born. When God new you, God chose you, God loved you, got accepted. You got embraced. You got called, you got ordained, you God made you something special before you were even born. That's got to be our new point of reference. And where do we look? You can you can go to you can go to ancestry dog or ancestry dot net or whatever those places are to find out about your you know, where you came from.
Or better go to the Bible and find out that you came from Abraham, from Isaac, from Jacob, you came from the Lord himself. You came from the heart of God before you even born. God loved you. God knew you and God wanted you. This is how we uproot the spirit of rejection. We need to be. Let me close with two more thoughts. We must be delivered from people x twenty six four. Seventeen says God says to Paul, I will deliver you from the people. I will deliver you from the Jewish people and from the Gentiles, and then I will send you to them. It's almost contradictory. I'm going to deliver you two. I'm going to deliver you from them and deliver you to them.
What does that mean? God must deliver us. We must be. We must be. We must we must free ourselves from people so that we can be free to be a blessing to people. We must we must we must free ourselves. We must free ourselves from needing their approval. And then we will be free to give them love. We must free ourselves from needing their love, and then we'll be free to give them love. We must be we must free ourselves from needing their affection and needing them to respond, to react to our to our Facebook page, our hair or our dress or outfit or our job performance or our muscles or our or our lack of them or our the way we look or the way we walk, of the way we talk or the color of our skin or the way we jive or the way we we do our thing.
You know what I'm saying, brah? We have to realize that until we are delivered from needing them, we will never be of any good to them. And no, for those four things here and number four is you have to deal with the you have to renew the spirit of be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Ephesians four. Twenty three to be renewed. In the spirit of your mind. How do you do that? that means there's a war between love. Is trying to tell you love is trying to speak to God's love and rejection from the enemy is trying to speak to you and you have to choose which one you're going to come into agreement with, choose which route you're going to agree with. I choose to agree with the route of love.