Friday, April 27, 2007
A Light in the Dark
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.”
—John 15:18
Jesus became very popular during His earthly ministry. He spoke in a way that people could understand. He reached out to hurting people. He was known as a friend of sinners. All that really irritated the religious authorities. Clearly, He was a threat to their legalistic system of works. And thus, He became public enemy number one. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was a wanted man.
In the same way, there are people today who hate Jesus Christ and everything He stands for. They despise His teachings. And if you follow Jesus Christ and His teachings and stand up for what you believe, then they will hate you too. In fact, Jesus said we should remember that if the world hates us, it hated Him first. He chose us out of the world, and therefore the world hates us. We can expect to be persecuted (see John 15:18–20).
We are representatives of Christ. And if you think people hate Christians in general, then try being a pastor. Because I’m a representative of God, some people will take all their anger out on me. “Why does God do this?” they demand. “Why doesn’t God do that?” I accept the fact that I’m a representative of God. I’m not ashamed of it. But some people will hate us for it.
That can be hard, because we don’t want to be hated by others. We don’t want to offend people unnecessarily. We want to be gracious. But because we are representatives of Christ, we will bother people, because they know we stand for biblical values and biblical truth. It is like being a light in a dark place.
For more relevant and biblical teaching from Pastor Greg Laurie, go to www.harvest.org.
Copyright © 2007 by Harvest Ministries. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Bible text from the New King James Version is not to be reproduced in copies or otherwise by any means except as permitted in writing by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Attn: Bible Rights and Permissions,