The world hateth you.

John

{15:17} These things I command you, that ye love one another.
{15:18} If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
{15:19} If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
{15:20} Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.


We don't want to be hated.
If the world hates us then we're doing something wrong aren't we?
When the world is against you then you sure aren't conforming to the world and maybe thta's the whole point. We can't conform to the world. We can't expect to be able to conform to the world and walk as Jesus walked.


We want to walk with Jesus and we want to walk with the world. Having it both ways is always good right? To our modern way of thinking it is. Or who knows, maybe it's always been the way man has tended to think. If they can lead a good life with just enough mischief to balance it out it's called complete.


We see religious groups that adhere to strict ways of dressing, eating, convorting with the world and we shake our heads calling it extremism. We rouse up and cry out, Jesus died to do away with all that strict stuff. We want to believe that Jesus died so we would no longer have to act certain ways and such not because it draws us closer to Him but because it makes our lives less strict and well, conforming to the world is a whole lot easier when we tear down walls of separation.


I'm not saying those groups have it all right, but I am saying the world sure does tend towards hating them while the world looks at us and sees what? Good people with a few little quirks but for the most part a nice sort of people that aren't too different, aren't too strange. There's still enough world in us so that we can get along with just about any one without them hating us.


Everything inside us cries out not to be hated by the world. No? You could careless if the world hates you? What about if your friends hate you? What about if your loved one hate you? Do you use your loved ones as an excuse to keep one foot in the door of the world? We don't want to be hated. Can you stop right now and imagine all your loved ones hating you? Not all your loved ones being disappointed with you, but all your loved ones truly HATING you. If you're lucky then you are surrounded by those who love Jesus as much as you do, but that's not how it is for everyone.


Chosen out of the world.


It'd be nice if all the world stopped at a certain time and messages came from above so that all could see and know, messages saying, 'I have chosen you, Dorene; I have chosen you, Debbie; I have chosen you Diane; I have chosen you, Shirley; I have chosen you, Matthew; I have chosen you, Beth.' Wouldn't it be nice to hear that and have everyone around us hear it too so that we could just stop feeling compelled to conform to the world. We would then be expected to be different, right? We've had a personal communication from God that we are His and we are no longer to be 'of' the world. Also, it's okay for the world to hate us because we would be different from them, we were chosen.


Unfortunately things don't work that way. Unfortunately for us, not for God. He wants us of our own free will to choose Him over worldly conformity. He wants our love for Him to be greater than the love of the world. He wants us to step outside the norm and be different if only because growing closer to Him will naturally do that, naturally change us.


John

{15:17} These things I command you, that ye love one another.
{15:18} If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
{15:19} If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
{15:20} Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.


The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted Jesus they will persecute us.


That sounds so cultish doesn't it?


Some wild-eyed preacher calling out to his congregation- If they persecute Jesus they will persecute you!


We can picture it as being okay back in Jesus' day and we comfort ourselves by saying, people just don't persecute like they used to. This is a modern, advanced society and well you can believe whatever you want to and you won't be persecuted. We'll tolerate your kind especially if you aren't so different from the way we are.


There is so much to think about, so much to contemplate and ultimately, choices to be made. We make choices daily. We make descisions and while the decision to turn on the tv or to read a book might not seem like big decisions in the end they just might be.


May the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior have mercy upon us. We are so weak and so full of sin. We know it's not meant to be easy here and now, we know we'd much rather be taken out of the situation we are in and put in another that would aid our walks with Christ and yet we have the lives we have and there seems to be nothing we can do to change them- nothing that seems rational and keeps us with our loved ones, nothing that seems rational and keeps us living the way we are used to living. Lord, we need your help desperately we are weak, we are sinners, we are the lowest of the low.


Lord, please help us!


By your mercy Lord!


Amen.


“In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God.”- Psalm 62:7