The Lord Jesus, “came unto His own and His own received Him not,” (John 1:12).

Our Lord was not received even by His own people that He grew up with.

As the ultimate outsider, He stood against the mainstream of religious thought and customs of the day.

Those who knew the law and quoted the Torah considered His words as blasphemy.

You need to know that when the world and others around you shun you or consider you as an outcast, that you are in good hands.

Our heritage is one of identifying with the One that walked this earth and spoke the words from heaven, and yet He was received not.

We aren’t called to fit-in with the status quo, even among the many who go to church on Sunday and call themselves Christians.

We aren’t called to fit into the systems of man, for we “are in the world but not of it.”

Consider those who have gone before us; consider the life of John the Baptist. He was a voice crying in the wilderness and he was more of an outsider than anyone else.

He didn’t dress like those around him, nor did he partake in their lifestyles, and yet God chose him as a prophetic voice for the masses.

“They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (Of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise: God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect,” Hebrews 11:37-40.

Consider for a moment the heritage that we have with those who have come before us.

Do you think for a minute that they had fit-in with the status quo?

Were they received by many around them, or were they considered as an outcast?

And yet they were chosen because of their faith to stand against the status quo and to speak and to do things that would turn the world outside down.

Just know that you are in good company when some may consider you as an outsider or even an outcast.

We all want to have a sense of belonging with a group of people, and yet because of our heritage and our identification with Jesus, those groups are quite narrow.

For many may talk the talk and look the look, but soon enough one finds out that you have no place there.

Consider it a good thing if you are labeled an outcast or an outsider, for your sense of belonging is now with the One who has gone before you.

He has paved the way and carved out a place where your character and spirit can reside within Him.

 

Selah,
~ Stephen Hanson

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Stephen Hanson of In His Truth Ministries came to the LORD is a special way in 1975 and has prophesied regularly since. In these end-time birthing pangs we are reminded that judgment must first begin with the household of God. Will we be prepared and ready?

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