“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.” (John 15:18)
“Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.” (James 4:4)
It seems to be, and not to add or take away from the Scriptures here in any sense, that the Lord should have said, “When the world hates you,” because I do not know, have ever met or read about anyone who has devoted their lives to the glory of God that the world does not hate. They do not agree to disagree when it comes to the Scriptures, they do not encourage people living in sin, they do not spend their lives eating, drinking and associating on the continuous level with those who do not profess the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and live their lives for Him.
Mention these words to almost anyone you know that says they are a Christian and you will immediately be met with contentious words. They will say that Jesus associated with sinners on a regular basis. No, He did not, He brought the Lord God to their attention, and if they rejected Him, then He moved on. You can rest assured that He did not spend what we call quality time on a continuous level with those who rejected Him for who He was and is.
It’s so easy to bend just a little here and a little there, to hold conversations with the wicked comes naturally to us, for we were once one of them, but if you are still living in and for the world, if the majority of your friends are lost sinners and it does not bother you one bit to hang around with them, then your salvation is definitely in question.
“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” (John 17:16)
If they love you and want to spend time around you, then I suggest that you are only a Christian when you are not with them, that you are not saved and that your profession of faith was nothing more than an emotional expression when you spoke it. If you think that you can live in the world, if you believe that you are saved and are not called to come out of the world, then you are not saved.
Put it to the test, every time you meet these friends of yours, start speaking about Christ, quote Scripture verses to them and ask them what they think they mean, give account of your faith continuously and see how long they remain your friends. But we wouldn’t want to offend, would we? We wouldn’t want to shove Jesus down their throats and drive them away now, would we?
This is why most churches today do not teach about reaching out to the lost, and those few that do most definitely do not ask those in attendance each week to stand up and tell the congregation how many they spoke to the previous week. How easy it is today, simply repeat the words offered, show up to church occasionally, maybe pick up that Bible once in a while, and enjoy the world and all that it has to offer on top of it. The best of both worlds, right?
If you are professing Jesus Christ as Lord and loving this world at the same time, then you are deceiving yourself about your salvation and you are an enemy of God.
Rejection, that is the path of the one who has been crucified with Christ, if people hate you because you love Him and you profess Him often and with more than your lips but with your actions, with your entire life, rejoice, for the Kingdom of heaven is yours.
Can you pay that price?
