Anyone who hates me also hates my Father. If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate me and my Father. This fulfills what is written in their Scriptures: ‘They hated me without cause.’ (John 15:23-25 NLT)Jesus did not die just because it was time. God didn’t tell him one day, well, Son, it’s time. So Jesus goes out toward the cross, everybody is upset, the soldiers all think he is a regular guy and nobody wants to kill him, but after all, God said to.
Kind of like in Green Mile when they were upset to have to kill the man they knew to be innocent. Not so with Jesus.
The men in charge killed Jesus because they hated him. And they hated him because at every turn he made fools of them. He did everything he could to go against what they had to say.
It didn’t matter what it was they thought was proper, Jesus went in the opposite direction. He ate and drank wine and stuff when they didn’t want him to, he associated with people that were not people the leaders thought he ought to be with, he flaunted his disregard of their traditions.
One thing for sure, Jesus was not a gentleman. He didn’t care at all what people thought.
And they hated him for it.
On the other hand, the people to whom he came loved him. They followed him around listening to everything he had to say. They also loved the fact that he put these pompous fools in their places.
But the pompous fools did not like it at all. And the one thing they wanted to do was kill him. in fact, they disliked him so much that they made a bi-partisan committee on how to put him to death without the people hating them. Both the Pharisees (the conservative party in the Jewish government) and the Sadducees (the liberal party) disliked him enough, they got together to rid themselves of him.
Okay, they hated him. What does that mean? It means that if you serve him, people are going to hate you. Luke 21:17 says: Everyone will hate you because of me.
If they hated him, they will also hate you.
Wait, you say, I didn’t do anything. All I want to do is help people. The same could be said of Jesus. All he did was come to bring people back to God.
His problem, and ours too, is that he didn’t do it the way people who viewed themselves as experts wanted him to do it.
Have you ever wondered why the news channels refuse to acknowledge the help Christians give in world disaster. Christians are the ones who do the most, yet they are absolutely unrecognized. In fact, there are those who would rather people starve than have to admit that Christians are helping them.
As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 2:15-17 (NLT), Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume.
Those who do not like Jesus or his message of grace feel that it is death. And it is. It is death to the ways of the world and life in him.
If you are a Christ-follower, you follow a guy who was hated for what he did. Hard to understand but it is the truth.
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