Act 14:19-22 But Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. (20) But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city, and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. (21) When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, (22) strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.
If you are a Christian, and I mean a real Christian – born again, a new creation – then this world is going to hate you. And some of the most intense hatred is going to come from counterfeits who claim to be Christians but are phonies. They are darkness. You are light in the Lord.
Jesus very plainly forewarned us to expect this:
Joh 15:18-19 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. (19) If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Many of your “fellow” Christians are going to be critical of you, calling you a troublemaker, or divisive, or unloving, or judgmental. They get along very nicely with the world. They are still citizens of the devil’s kingdom, though they credit their popularity with the masses as being due to their wide-ranging love and acceptance of everyone, something they insist really pleases the Lord.
But the reality is that if anyone who claims to be a Christian remains popular with most everyone, if their claim to belong to Christ has really never cost them anything, if they are in step with the unbelievers around them, Christ does not know them. And they are going to find out on that Day when He comes again to judge the world.
We must not be discouraged when the missiles fly at us. We must not wear the false guilt and blame that the enemy, via his servants dressed as angels of light (wolves in wool)…casts our way. We must not even condemn ourselves.
1Jn 4:6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
Dear Pastor Crippen,
I can’t posibly find the right words to properly thank you for your soul-saving work. How long and painful the inner struggle has been. …
I wonder if your pland to address the topic of abusive covert aggressive parents. That is the deepest taboo of all, both in church communities and in society, and my guess the suffering and the number of such silent victims are unfathomable.
In my case the abuser has been my narcissitic-controlling mother, along with a weak, ignoring father, who enabled the abuse and made the hell worse for me.
My mother, who is a pathological liar, managed to cut me off my siblings and the entire extended family. Not too surprisingly, the whole family believes her. Many of my family members are the sort of ‘success-Christians’ who are very much loved by this world. They all give credit to my mother’s unholy charade, and then, when Iexposed her ugly deeds, they always find an excuse for her, they find it okay if she spreads lies about me while condemn me for bad-mouthing my mother when I defend myself against her slander. They also judge me for “not living in a nice way” by which they mean that I have no husband and no family. But how could I have a family? It was my mother who controlled me to the degree that she cut me off the world and chased away the man I loved. My mother pretends to be a saint and claims that I am the reason of her assumed “calvary” and convinced everyone, even those who would otherwise like me, to stay away from me.
My case has proved that when the behind-the-scene abuse is done by a parent, especially by a mother, the daugher or son has even less credit and support from the church and society. An abusive and slandering parent means being entrapped for a life-time.
Yet, against the odds, against my very own mother’s smear-campaign, I survived. It is because my only hope has always been Jesus Christ and He does care indeed, He takes care of those who trust Him and call out for His help.