Hated by the World

^{18 -19}"If you find the godless world is hating you, remember it got its start hating me. If you lived on the world's terms, the world would love you as one of its own. But since I picked you to live on God's terms and no longer on the world's terms, the world is going to hate you.

²⁰"When that happens, remember this: Servants don't get better treatment than their masters. If they beat on me, they will certainly beat on you. If they did what I told them, they will do what you tell them.

^{21 -25}"They are going to do all these things to you because of the way they treated me, because they don't know the One who sent me. If I hadn't come and told them all this in plain language, it wouldn't be so bad. As it is, they have no excuse. Hate me, hate my Father—it's all the same. If I hadn't done what I have done among them, works no one has ever done, they wouldn't be to blame. But they saw the God-signs and hated anyway, both me and my Father. Interesting—they have verified the truth of their own Scriptures where it is written, 'They hated me for no good reason.'

^{26 -27}"When the Friend I plan to send you from the Father comes—the Spirit of Truth issuing from the Father—he will confirm everything about me. You, too, from your side must give your confirming evidence, since you are in this with me from the start."

John 15

being a Christian isn't easy. yes, Jesus' burden is light and God is always here but the world and satan are still trying to bring us down. this is why the armor of God is so important. satan knows that we're weakest when we're not with God, when we're not spending time with God, when we don't spend time in the Word. he knows this full well and will do everything in his power to pull us away from God. when the world starts looking down on us, when they start making fun of us, when they start ridiculing and hating us, we have to know that this is what we get ourselves into when we accept Jesus Christ. we will be the last in this world. everyone will look at us and say that we're ignorant, that we're weak, that we're crazy to believe in such things. but as Christ followers, we know that this man named Jesus Christ was real, is real. we know that He died on the cross for us. He took all our sins from us onto His own body so that we could be saved. we put faith in God knowing that we will see Him in heaven when our bodies fade away on this earth. we have a hope that's stronger and nothing compares. we have God. we have to know that the world hated God first and to anyone who follows Him, they will hate just the same. when we stop being "of" the world and just start being "in" the world, not following in everything that it says we should do, i.e. get a job, get a career, start a family, be successful, make lots of money, be beautiful, retire, etc., they start calling us "failures," "losers," and "hopeless." but we know better, we know ourselves as, "blessed," "loved," and "full of His hope." we know this because the Bible tells us so. God's Word tells us so. His Truth to us tells us so. you see, if we don't live in the Truth and the Truth doesn't live in us, in our hearts, we're left right out in the open with no guard. we need to remember that God is good. God is with us and will never ever leave or abandon us. we just have to acknowledge that He's here.