There are some passages of scripture that we all love and others that are a little bit harder to swallow.  For example I love the beginning of John 15 but the ending isn’t quite as much fun.  I am a person that loves to be loved.  I am a self-proclaimed approval junkie.  I know deep down that I only live for an audience of one and God’s approval is the only approval that I need.  Yet there is that inner tug to be liked and accepted.  That’s why I don’t particularly enjoy the end of John 15 where it talks about being hated by the world.  Let’s look at Jesus’ words together today.

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If 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. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24 If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.

Jesus certainly knew what it was like to be hated by the world.  He experienced this in a variety of ways during His time on earth.  He is reminding us that when we live the kind of lives that He calls us to live we will probably experience the same type of hatred.  We will ruffle feathers and upset some people.  It is easy to fall into a type of Christianity where we simple fit in with the culture but Jesus calls us to more.  He calls us to be salt and light.  While salt and light do lots of good and beneficial things they both can also irritate.  Jesus often irritated with His teaching and life and we are called to do the same.  I pray that Jesus would give us all the strength to be salt and light in a world that needs it even if that means we are disliked by some. 

In His Grip,
Pastor Dave