"It hated me first"

John 15: 18-19

18"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.


"It hated me first"……. We often get so wrapped up in our own little circle that we forget that there is a world out there that does not subscribe to our point of view. As a matter of fact, not only do they not have the same view as ours, they will do whatever they can to tear down your belief. At the end of the day, they do not want you to follow Christ.

Think of all the times in the Bible that people came up to Jesus, and pled with him to stop teaching, or came to his disciples and tried to reason with them, to get them to quiet Christ. Do we not face the same trials today? We all have people in our life that work very hard to get us to waver. There are Churches out there teaching a “middle road” to salvation. Many today want to bend the teachings of Christ to match the world we live in instead of trying to bend the world to the teachings of Christ.

There is little doubt that viewing God’s word as a flexible text is much easier than living the life he mapped out for us. It is always easier to conform to society than to stand up for your beliefs and hold firm to your values. If you are willing to bend, people will not be so hard on you. If you will pick and choose scripture that makes life easy, and disregard the parts that call for determination, then you can blend in to the “norm”.

Could you imagine if Christ had acted in such a way? We would have no salvation; the prophecies would not have been fulfilled……. He would not have been the Son of God. Oh his life here would have been easier for sure. I would be willing to bet that he would have lived to be an old man. However his life would not have had any meaning.

Are our lives any different today? I think not. We cannot bow at every turn when we meet hardship, or resistance. We cannot change the word to fit the life we want to live. We have to shape our lives around his word. We have to be willing to take the persecution for our beliefs, and the persecution will come. It might not be to the extent that it was in the days of Christ, but you will have to withstand persecution for your beliefs, and stand we all must. You do not have to look far today to see the distain for things Christian, and as long as Christians continue to give up a little ground that distain will continue to grow.

So stand strong in the Lord. He lived and died for us and for our salvation. He withstood the persecution of the world. HE did not complain, he did not shrink from his destiny. We owe a debt that must be paid with the same dedication. Not doing so might make our lives easier, but what meaning will they have?


Peace,Rev. T