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Opening Prayer
As I read Scripture today, Father, plant more deeply in me the reality of your love and faithfulness, of your power to save.
Read JOHN 15:18–25
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
The World Hates the Disciples
18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24 If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’
Reflect
‘Great Father of glory … help us to see / ’Tis only the splendor of light hideth thee.’1 Wherever you are, ask the Father to reveal his presence to you.
Hatred and persecution against Jesus’ followers is as real now as it was when John was writing. One in seven Christians worldwide are persecuted for their faith (according to statistics available as I write). In 2022, over five thousand Christians were murdered, and a similar number were abducted.2 Such Christians will understand fully what it means to be hated by the world (v. 18). They may find some comfort in Jesus’ reassurance that their experiences connect them with him, as he also received such treatment (vv. 18, 20).
Others—for whom life in this world may be quite comfortable—may find Jesus’ language of hatred somewhat alien. It’s true that from time to time, we may be misunderstood, mocked, or abused. My closest experience to persecution occurred a few years ago when an email I sent out around my company advertising a prayer group erupted into a mass Christian-bashing conversation. For many of us, however, it is more of a challenge to prevent ourselves from being assimilated into ‘the world’ (vv. 18, 19). Have we come to love ‘human praise more than praise from God,’ like the Jewish leaders?3
It can be helpful—for all of us—to dwell upon Jesus’ words: ‘I have chosen you out of the world’ (v. 19). We ‘belong’ not to the world but to Jesus. This is a spiritual reality: as Paul puts it, ‘You are not your own; you were bought at a price.’4 Like all spiritual realities, we need to attend to it and take hold of its truth. Those who are hated or persecuted might call to mind that they are not alone but are closely following their Master, who counts them as his own. Those who tend to find themselves at ease in the world might recall the price Jesus paid to call them.
Apply
Examining your life, might there be areas where you are too comfortable in the world around you, conforming too easily to its ways?
Closing prayer
Almighty God, enable those persecuted because of their faith to know your peace and protection and the reality of Christ’s presence with them.
1 ‘Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise’, Walter Chalmers Smith, 1867. 2 https://www. opendoorsuk.org/. 3 John 12:43. 4 1 Cor 6:19, 20.
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