hated

We want everyone to love us. One of the hardest realizations as you grow up is the fact that not everyone does. And when you run into someone who actively hates you, it’s a shock. 

That’s another way our faith is counter-cultural. We should expected to be hated.

John 15:18-20 says, “‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 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. 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.’”

This passage makes me think of all the times I’ve wanted to be loved by the world. There was a time when having a blue check mark on Twitter seemed like a worthy goal; having tens of thousands of followers hanging on my next tweet seemed like the ultimate in affirmation.  At other times I’ve been overly attentive to how strangers react to these posts. And for much of my life, I wasted a lot of energy trying to make sure that everyone at work though highly of me.

Yet Jesus tells us that if the world loves us, we have the wrong allegiance. The world loves its own, it doesn’t love Jesus-followers.

I stopped focusing on having everyone at work like me when I realized that many negative reactions come from people who don’t want to be held accountable, or don’t want me to be effective. Those are people who think that they should be allowed to skate, and don’t like it when I shine the light on their behavior. Or they feel threatened by people who out-perform them.

That’s probably why the world hates Christians. We remind them that they’re living wrong; we prove by our behavior that you don’t have to be enslaved by your desires. When we stand for the truth, we call them out for saying there is no absolute truth.

When you think about it, the only way not to be hated by our culture is not to stand for anything Jesus stands for. But what does it gain a person to win the world and lose his soul?