Pressures from those we hold close can keep us in a box built of their expectations; they have a certain perception of us and we have learned to live up to it.
Jesus experienced this; He wasn't accepted as a prophet in His own home town, but He didn't let that stop Him from being who God created Him to be. In fact, his contemporaries chatted amongst themselves, saying "Isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary? Who does he think He is, trying to break out of the box we've created for Him, calling Himself the Savior and healing people" and they took offense and rejected Him (paraphrased from Matt 13:55). Note that this didn't stop Jesus from bringing the goodness of God to them in the form of wonder working, miraculous power, but it stopped them from receiving the goodness of God through Him.
Jesus offered them exactly what they needed, but perhaps they were expecting their 'breakthrough' to come from a different source. Perhaps they were the type of people who thought the fishing was always better on the other shore so they wouldn't cast their lines close by. God stretched out His hand to bring relief and freedom to them through 'one of their own' but they wanted it from a stranger whom they didn't know. It was easier to receive from someone they didn't have to see as an everyday human - someone they didn't get irritated with as a child, or someone they weren't jealous of while growing up.
It has been said that 'familiarity breeds contempt,' and this certainly seems to be the case with Jesus in Matthew 13, however, we also know that love covers a multitude of sins. We cannot choose how (or if) people will receive the love of God - but we can choose to be a carrier and take it where He directs us. We can choose to step out of the limitations and expectations that others put on us and live as the recreated and powerful person who God has called each of us to be. If we are rejected by those who have known us, so be it - they are rejecting the goodness and power of God. Let that be a sign to you that you have truly come in the power and character of God, for just as they rejected Him, they rejected you.
But don't let that stop you from bringing His goodness to 'your own hometown!' Don't let it be a platform for offense so that their expectations of you are fulfilled. They may say that "you haven't changed one bit," but don't get your back up and respond with a few choice words of condemnation - speak love and life to them and be patient! How you act in the rejection of your message may be the very thing that turns their hearts to God!
We are accepted in the beloved - brought into the loving arms of God and embraced with tender affection (Eph 1:6)! So don't prize the acceptance of others so much that it dictates who you are and suppresses the potential you've been given by God. Let your desire, (as well as your words and actions) be to bring others into that same embrace of God through your loving, patient example. But NEVER live up to the expectations of those around you when God is calling you to a higher plane of living in Him - that would be the same as rejecting God, the very thing which Jesus contemporaries did to Him!
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