Thought for Thursday, May 16th

May 16 2013

To Be Disliked

   Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. These things I command you, that ye love one another. 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 hateth 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 15:16-21

“One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior.”

-          Friedrich Nietzsche

Do you ever find yourself, as a Christian, feeling disliked or maybe even hated?

If so, you are not alone: in fact you are in good company.  Jesus experienced both dislike and hatred from the very people who should have been the first to embrace Him: those within the church.

We are reminded throughout scripture, that we will be persecuted and misunderstood for our faith: but we should count these experiences as joyous.

We are even told that to have a deep relationship with Christ will put us at odds with the world around us: but in this we should not despair or become discouraged, rather we should rejoice.

It seems almost paradoxical to think that feeling hatred or dislike and rejection should make us happy, in a sense: but then our joy is not in the world but it is in the Lord.

And unfortunately, we often find that some of our greatest critics, detractors or even haters are not those people outside the fellowship of our church, but rather they are seated in the pews or chairs right next to us with regularity on Sunday mornings.  Jesus would probably say to us, if He were to speak with our modern lingo: ‘Been there – experienced that.’

We are not alone and our approval does not need to come from this world or even our fellow church members: we need God’s approval and if we live such as to have that – the rest really doesn’t matter.

Prayer:

Father, often I find myself becoming overly concerned with what others think of me and whether or not they approve of who I am and what I am doing: but help me to remember that is not important; only Your opinion of me matters and that is what I must live for.