Ever feel like you just don’t fit in, as if you are always the outsider never completely understood?

Jesus may have felt this way as well.   No one else on this planet was the Son of God and the Son of Man. He was in a foreign land with an understanding that He could teach to others but not one that others often understood.  Despite the fact that He was misunderstood and rejected often, He did not live downtrodden. He lived joyfully and abundantly in fellowship with his father. He did what He saw the Father doing and said those things the Father was speaking. He lived with an awareness that he and his father were one. Even from a young age, when his parents lost track of him and later found him in the temple. He simply explained “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” Luke 2:49 NIV

 

The beautiful aspect is that Jesus reflected how we can live on this earth.

He came that we can live again in unity with the Father.   Jesus plainly states his vision in his prayer, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  John 17:20-21 NIV

So what does this mean for us? It means the end of rejection, loneliness and all sense of not fitting in – in all aspects of life. His prayer has been answered. He secured our restoration through the cross. We simply receive the truth that we have been united to Him. He is in us through the Holy Spirit and we are one as the Father and Jesus are One. We are not splintered, divorced, abandoned or rejected in our true identity.

Life has a way of kicking us around up and down. Externally we can experience a sense of belonging, popularity or being understood just as easily as we can feel outcast, unseen or put down. Yet we do not need to labor in this.   We are better off resting. Resting in that He promised, “I will not leave you as orphans ; I will come back to you”. He has come back and sent the comforter.

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[c] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. John 14:16-20 NIV

Here is our antidote to bring us back to a sense of belonging.   Those voices that say we are not enough or we do not fit in are lies and often echoes from the past. They are shadows not reality. He is our shepherd who leads us through the valley of the shadow of death. May our ears be opened to our Father’s love. The first step is to know He is not distant. He is not even right beside.  He is inside of us, intertwined in our life.  He has chosen to be One with us. He has chosen us. We are His bride. He is not leaving us. We are stuck with Him in a good way! He says you are accepted, you are His delight.

But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. 1Corinthians 6:7