There are many Christians, who do their best and try everything they can to make the world love them. Because the world hates Christians. Sometimes it’s just too embarrassing to watch how far Christians go and eventually say or do things, that damage the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. Only because they want to be liked and accepted by the world and become friends with the world. They compromise and think they are some big shot. While in reality they succumbed and are defeated by the pressure of the world. They may be liked and accepted by the world, but in God’s eyes, they are shameful. Because they were not able to stand on the Word and didn’t stay faithful and obedient to the will of God. Instead, they have denied Jesus Christ by watering down the gospel and compromise with the world. All because they were not prepared to die to ‘self’ and lay down their own lives and follow Jesus.
A son of God
But if you decide to follow Jesus, you have crucified your flesh (Mat 16:24, Mar 8:34, Lu 9:23). Through regeneration, which means that you’ve died to the flesh and your spirit is raised from the dead, you have become a new creation in the spiritual realm.
You are no longer a son of the devil, who has the spirit of the world; the spirit of the antichrist and you don’t belong to the devil and the world anymore.
But through regeneration, you have become a son of God, in whom the Holy Spirit dwells. Now you belong to God and His Kingdom.
What happened in the spiritual realm will become visible in the natural realm. Therefore there shall be a change in your life.
If you won’t experience a change in your life, you might ask yourself if you are truly born again and have become a new creation and if the Holy Spirit dwells in you.
When you become a son of God, you don’t belong to the world anymore and therefore the world will no longer welcome and receive you. Except if you compromise and stay carnal and keep living the life you’ve always lived.
If you live like the world and say and do the same things as the world, then it shows that you are not born again and don’t walk after the Spirit. Since the flesh is still alive and has the highest authority in your life.
The Word of God is quick and powerful
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in His sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do (Hebrews 4:12-13)
When you are born again, it’s crucial to renew your mind with the Word of God. Because when you don’t renew your mind with the Word of God, you shall keep your carnal mind and keep walking after the flesh and say and do what the world says and do. You shall not get to know the will of God and therefore you shall not put off the old man and not put on the new man.
The Holy Spirit, Who dwells in you shall help you and guide and teach you. When you were the old creation you maybe didn’t understand the Bible. The reason why you didn’t understand the Bible is that your spirit was dead and therefore your mind was darkened and couldn’t understand the spiritual things of God.
But when you became a new creation, your spirit was raised from the dead and by the baptism with the Holy Spirit, you received the Holy Spirit and therefore you shall be able to understand the spiritual things of God and His Kingdom.
The Holy Spirit knows the depths of God, which are hidden in His Word.
By studying the Word of God, you shall not only get to know Jesus, but you shall also get to know God and His will. You shall get to know His thoughts and His ways.
Every time, when you find out a truth in the Word of God that contradicts your former carnal mind and what the world says, you shall have to make a choice, to believe and obey the Word of God and walk in faith after the Spirit or to believe and obey the words of the world and your carnal mind and what your senses tell you and walk after the flesh.
You can only walk in faith if you believe that the words of God are the truth and obey them and do the words of God in your life.
When you are born again and start walking after the Word and the Spirit and therefore walk in faith, then one of the consequences will be that you won’t be so loved anymore, but rather be hated by those, who belong to the world, live in sin and are not willing to repent.
Because just like the Word divides spirit and soul, so shall the Word also divide soulish people, who walk after the flesh and spiritual people, who walk after the Spirit.
You shall not be received and welcomed everywhere you go. Not even among your fellow brothers and sisters, who are worldly-minded. Well, if you say what they want to hear and don’t say anything that might offend them and as long as you do what they expect of you, then there won’t be any problems.
But as soon as you speak the truth and confront them with the truth of the Word, instead of giving them your own opinion, that derives from your flesh; your carnal mind and your carnal wisdom, knowledge, emotions, and feelings, then you shall experience resistance.
The world hated Jesus
Jesus is our Lord and if He was hated and persecuted by the world and was banned by His people from the temple, His disciples, who are His followers, shall experience the same thing. Jesus spoke about it and said, that those, who love Him and obey His commandments, shall be hated and even persecuted.
And ye shall be hated of all men for My Name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved (Mat 10:22, Mar 13:13, Luke 21:17)
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another (Matthew 24:9-10)
Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets (Luke 6:22)
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. 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 hates you. 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. But all these things will they do unto you for My Name’s sake, because they know not Him that sent Me (John 15:18-21)
If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both Me and My Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated Me without a cause (John 15:22-25)
I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world (John 17:14)
Why the world hates Jesus?
The world cannot hate you; but Me it hates, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil (John 7:7)
Jesus gave us the reason, why the world hated Him. Jesus testified that the works of the world were evil, which means that He confronted the people, who belonged to the world, with their sin. When Jesus said these words to His disciples, His disciples were still the old creation. They were still carnal and belonged to the unfaithful generation that belongs to the world. But when they were born again and received the Holy Spirit, they were also hated and persecuted by the world. Because they testified that the works of the world were evil.
When the Holy Spirit dwells in you and you walk in obedience to God after the Word in righteousness, the Holy Spirit will reprove the world a.o. of sin.
Therefore, you shouldn’t marvel and be surprised when people, whom you’ve never met and with whom you have never spoken with, hate you for no reason.
That’s because the one, who dwells in them, hates the One, Who dwells in you.
The devil, who lives in them hates Jesus Christ, Who lives in you. Jesus said, that you shall be hated because of His Name.
Because of the fact, that you have died in Christ, you have laid down your own life and therefore it’s no longer you that lives, but through the resurrection of your spirit from the dead and by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Christ lives in you. When Christ lives in you, you shall speak and do His words and walk in the will of God.
Jesus spoke the words of His Father and the world wouldn’t receive His words. Just like in the Old Covenant, when the prophets spoke the truth of God and were hated, persecuted, imprisoned and sometimes even killed.
Therefore, those, who belong to Jesus and speak His words, which are the same words as the Father, shall be hated by the world.
Do you love God or do you love yourself?
As long as you don’t love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and haven’t laid down your flesh, and keep walking after the flesh, you care what other people think of you because it affects you. Therefore, you shall eventually succumb and compromise with the world.
But when you love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and have laid down your flesh and walk after the Spirit, then it won’t affect you, because your flesh is dead. You are not surprised that the world hates you because Jesus warned you (Read also: Count the cost).
However, you will not let that stop you to speak the truth of God and keep preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ on the earth. You shall not stop to preach and establish God’s Kingdom on this earth.
On the contrary! You shall continue and keep walking after the Word and the Spirit and therefore you shall keep walking in the truth and the love of God.
You shall not compromise with the world. You shall not try so hard to be liked and to be accepted by the world. But you shall stay loyal to Jesus and stand on the Word and not deviate from the words of God.
As long as you keep walking the Spirit and the Word and therefore do the commandments of God, which are also the commandments of Jesus, you prove that you love God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.
You show that your love for God comes first in your life, and as a result, you keep walking in obedience to Him.
You know the reason, why the people, who belong to the world, hate you, but you shall not be moved by that. You shall neither become mad or angry because you don’t walk after the flesh and therefore you are not led by your feelings and emotions. Instead, you shall be moved with compassion on them.
The world hates Christians, who follow and do the Word
Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren (1 John 3:13-14)
The hearers of the Word shall not be hated, since they are no threat to the kingdom of darkness. Only the followers and doers of the Word, which means that you believe every word of God and do the words of God, shall be hated by the world, just like Jesus.
Why? Because you testify by doing the truth and righteous works, that the works of the world are evil.
Look at Cain and Abel. Abel wasn’t killed by Cain because they had a disagreement or a fight. But Abel was killed because his works were righteous. The righteous works of Abel testified that the works of Cain were evil (Gen 21:41, 1 Jo 3:12)
This also happened with Jesus. Jesus walked in the truth and did righteous works. That’s why He was hated by the world. Because by doing righteous works Jesus testified that the works of the world were evil.
The Light of the world
Jesus was the Light of the world and through Him, the evil works, which were hidden in darkness were brought into the light.
The sons of the devil, who were the workers of iniquity and belonged to the world, hated the Light and therefore they did everything they could to get rid of Jesus and eliminate the Light.
He that believes on Him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the Name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that does truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God (John 3:18-21)
And just like Abel, the prophets, Jesus and the apostles, this is still the case. When Jesus Christ dwells in you and you walk after the will of Jesus and do what He has commanded you to do and walk in righteousness in the truth and the light, then the world shall hate you. Because your righteous works testify that the works fo the world (sin) are evil.
Jesus knew this and foretold His disciples. His disciples knew this and foretold their disciples. And we, as His disciples should know this and inform our disciples, so that the truth is revealed and the disciples will know what to expect and become spiritually resilient and are able to stand on the Word and don’t deny Jesus Christ. Because whosoever shall deny Jesus, him/her will Jesus also deny before the Father (Matthew 10:33, 2 Timothy 2:12)
‘Be the salt of the earth’
