Hated.
10/19/2012 5:25:49 PM
Oct 18, 2012~John #127 in series


 

Hated.  Today’s passage: John 15.18-25

Click to read: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2015.18-25&version=NLT&interface=print

Key verse: If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. V.18


Hello. 

Have you run into it yet?

It feels crummy.  Yet you were warned it would happen . . . at some time or another the ‘world’ might hate you because of your Christian faith, because you profess the name and character of Jesus.  How you experience hatred from the world will depend on a couple things—if you are truly living for Christ, or not . . . and how ‘the world’ around you is defined. 

In America, hatred because you profess the name of Jesus Christ might cause you to be rejected in some settings, ridiculed in others, and in some rare cases, could impact your employment.  It hit home in the Spring of this year for us.   One of my sons, who was a high school junior, took some verbal abuse from other students because I was his mother—the leader of Fellowship of Christian Athletes at our large public high school.

“Your mom is trying to convert everyone, Dude; she is brainwashing kids who are weak.  She…” and on it went.  At one point, it was bad enough for Dylan that he said, “Mom, I can’t go there anymore … you have no idea what it is like to be your son on campus!”  [Stunned?  Oh, yes, I was!  To my core]   And the most painful jabs about me came via text message from a boy he had known and liked for years, who had participated in FCA for several months—a boy I knew and cared deeply about.  It hurt . . . a lot; it hurt even more that it was so hard on Dylan. 

What had happened, for one young man in particular to be so bitter about Christianity and me?  Well, partly, it was his realization that, were he to become a Christian, he couldn’t do certain things—things he had just begun doing, things he liked.  And partly it was because he blamed God; see, his 47-year-old father had just died of leukemia.  So for him—anyone who represented God—made him very angry. 

Hated as a Christian in America = sometime social rejection, sometime mocking … probably no more. Hated as a Christian in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt, or any other Muslim nation living under Sharia law might mean separation from/and rejection by family, could mean imprisonment, torture, or something akin to these.  It is a bigger question than we have space here, but why do Muslims hate Christians so much?  Like anything else, we hate what we fear . . . Christianity speaks of love and grace, a Savior who came to earth for us.  Islam speaks of striving and work…  Hated because we have truth and love in Jesus, our Savior forever.  Amen.      He warned us it would happen.  


Christine