…for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation,?God?s very own possession?.

? 1 Peter 2:9

Nothing can separate you from the love of God (Romans 8:38). The first step to feeling God?s acceptance is knowing God chose you from the beginning of time. He is unchanging, which means His desire to choose you never changes. No matter how unworthy you feel, He chose you. When man rejects you, God never does. His love can never be separated from us.

God had chosen Hagar to be Sarai?s handmaiden. God also chose Hagar as His daughter, and He wasn?t going to let her stay in the pain of rejection. God intercepted her as she ran from her purpose because He cared about her. He had created her for a specific purpose, and He did not want Sarai?s rejection to ruin her future.

Like Hagar and Sarai, you also have been chosen. You are His possession?royalty in the kingdom of God. You were never meant to live in the rejection of man but in the acceptance of Christ. That?s your destiny; that?s your inheritance.

You may be a wife, a mom, a friend, a teacher, an executive, a business owner, a retailer; you may carry one or a few of the identities I listed. We need to understand that our identity as a daughter of Christ is the first and most important identity. Rejection comes out of our associating ourselves with other identities first because, with God, rejection is impossible. Only acceptance is found in God.

I remember hearing the news of a well-respected Christian leader whose husband had an affair. The couple tried reconciliation for a while, but he would not end that affair. With no other recourse, she began to pursue a divorce. They had been married for 25 years. Can you imagine the rejection she must have felt? After giving 25 years of her life to a marriage that ended in an affair and then divorce? She pressed through with such dedication and hope. She knew the value and worth she had in Christ. She also understood that her husband?s rejection did not define who she was; only Christ did and in Christ?s acceptance, she found worth. She did not become known as the Bible teacher who is divorced; she stayed the loved one in Christ.

Each one of us, and yes, you reading this, was created to live loved and to live fully accepted in Christ. Hagar was a maidservant but even before that role, she was a daughter of the Most High. The day that she ran away was the day she felt all hope was lost. Her feeling of rejection was so great that she wanted to get as far away from the very people into whom she had poured her heart and soul. But grace found her, and God reminded her that she was heard, she was seen, and she was loved. The promise of her life was not finished nor forsaken. Even though those closest to her had desperately hurt her, God knew her pain, and He desired to fill that gaping hole rejection had caused.

God Chose You