John 15:18-27
The World Hates the Disciples
18"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19If 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. 20Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. 22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. 23He who hates me hates my Father as well. 24If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: 'They hated me without reason.'
26"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. 27And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
Jesus tells us that this world hates Him...And if the world hates Him, then it will also hate them (His disciples)...
Jesus teaches us that the disciples were chosen out of this world...When the disciples see Him after His resurrection, they understand... They believe...The disciples and His followers will be persecuted...The first century and our early believers were persecuted and punished and persecuted...The persecutors wound up fighting God...You cannot fight God, His will, and His plan.. The new religion of Christianity was not of human origin, but from God...Christianity continues today...
When you follow Jesus and are close to Him, you can become alienated...Especially, when you get out into the world of nonbelievers or those who are partial believers, who do not like to talk about Him and the Bible...The word "Bible thumper" and "he's got religion" and other phrases like this are spoken, and generally spoken in a negative way...
Why Jesus remains so controversial is an interesting fact for me and my belief...Why now thousand years later, does Jesus cause this controversy?...It for me, is we must put a definition on who Jesus is...We must believe He is our LORD and our God, or we don't...It is that simple...One must take a stance that Jesus who He says He is or He is not...Christians, really true Christians, have to believe that Christianity is the religion it says it is and the other beliefs are wrong...This is even difficult for some Christians, because we don't want to call people, even think, and more difficult to tell people that they are wrong, if they do not believe (in Jesus)...For Christianity to continue to survive (and it will, because of God's will), the Christian believer must debate this fact, that Jesus is the Messiah and He resurrected and is still alive...Just like God is still alive...St. Peter teaches us in Matthew 16:16, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God...He is the living God and He sent Jesus...Jesus tells in Mark 12:27 us, that God is the not the God of the dead, but of the living...These facts, that both are still alive, takes us to "a point in our minds" to where we are to make a decision...The decision is we must believe or not believe...
This "point in our minds" is what I see as the controversy...Many do not want to make such a decision for one reason or another...I am not sure why God allows when we reach this "point in our minds" (for us) to move on to our jobs, to move on in thought, and to get busy and forget this "point in our minds"...But this "point" is always there, even though it is put in the back of our minds...St. Paul, I think, writes about this in Romans 1:20...Paul writes that since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-His eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse...When we look outside and look around and see all of creation and we try to reason how the air, the earth, all this got here and we connect this to the "point in our minds" about the Living God and Living Son...This invisible quality for me is that "point in our minds"...It is the answer to they jigsaw puzzle piece we are missing in the connection between how we are here and how is the earth here...This "point in our minds" takes a leap of faith because it is a thought and thought process not of this world...
In Psalm 35:19 Jesus tells us that "they hated Him without reason"...Jesus is the truth, yet He is hated...We have no reason to hate Him... We tend to dislike and stay away from things we do not understand...Without some studying and believing and faith, He will remain hated, because He is not of this world...
He sent the disciples the Counselor, the Holy Spirit...The Holy Spirit is also not of this world...It is from His world...When Jesus is gone the disciples will feel Him and the Father and know THEY exist because they are filled with the Holy Spirit...The Holy Spirit comes to the Twelve in Acts chapter two...With the Holy Spirit the disciples feel the Father and the Son...Jesus, who told them a few times that the Holy Spirit would come, and it does...Immanuel, who is Jesus, means, God with us (Matthew 1:28)...God is with us when we look around and see these things, this earth, the people, and believe (through our faith and the leap of faith) that Jesus is still here and alive...The Holy Spirit, the Counselor, who goes out from the Father, and comes from the Father keeps us in touch with the Father and Son...The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not from this world...Though hard to understand, this is our connection with God, the Father, Jesus the Son...This is the Trinity of God...
When we see and feel this we are to be evangelicals and spread this Spirit of truth...And we/you must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning...The disciples are no longer here...His new disciples, must continue to spread the good news...