#DailyDevotion If The World Doesn’t Hate You, You’re Probably Not Talking About Jesus
John 15:26-16:4 26“When the Comforter comes, Whom I’ll send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, Who proceeds from the Father, He’ll tell the truth about Me. 27And you, too, tell the truth, because you’ve been with Me from the beginning.” 16″I told you this so that nothing will upset your faith. 2You will be put out of the synagogue. Yes, the time will come when anyone who murders you will think he’s serving God. 3Men will do these things because they didn’t get to know the Father or Me. 4But I told you this so that when it happens you’ll remember I told you about it. I didn’t tell you this at first, because I was with you.
There is often much talk in some denominations a lot about the Holy Spirit. In many others he is not mentioned hardly at all. I get worried about the ones that he is the main focus of. Is it the Holy Spirit truly moving them? What does Jesus say the Holy Spirit is going to be doing? He says, “He’ll tell the truth about Me.”
It seems to me then, those filled with the Holy Spirit will be telling the truth about Jesus. Jesus will be the focus of their preaching, teaching and living. Jesus even admonishes his disciples and therefore the Church founded upon them, “You too, tell the truth, because you have been with me since the beginning.” The Apostles had been with Jesus since the baptism by John. They had seen all the miracles Jesus had done. They had heard all the teaching he had given the people and he had taught them personally. Jesus is the Truth. They were to proclaim the truth, i.e. Jesus. Churches founded on the Apostolic teaching will also be proclaiming the Truth, Jesus Christ.
Jesus then warns them and us what is to come. He did this in all the Gospels. He doesn’t want the persecution we will experience and the trials and tribulations that will come our way to disturb our faith in him. He told us these things were going to happen. They would be put out of the synagogues. They would be murdered. Those who think they are serving God persecute and kill those who proclaim Jesus is the only way to salvation. When we proclaim it is only through faith in Jesus’ work that we obtain salvation, eternal life and forgiveness of sins, those whose faith is actually in the world will oppose us. It goes against all their thinking about God.
Jesus tells us, they don’t know God or him. It will be the most religious people though who will persecute and kill us though. They may be in the Church. They may be part of some other religion i.e. Islam, Buddhist, Witchcraft, Freemasonry or simply those who worship the state. They have a completely different worldview. They have a different spirit. Their minds are captive to the god of this world. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Yet, the Holy Spirit preaches the free gift of the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name. The Holy Spirit gives away eternal life, the resurrection of dead to glory, and the kingdom of God to all who cast aside the faith of this world and put their faith in Jesus. Like Jesus he tells us to hate our life in this world and save our souls. Make Jesus and his work the certainty of your salvation and treat all your good works with contempt and you will be saved. You may make a lot of people upset. They may insult you and want to hurt you. They’ll take away your livelihood and perhaps even your life. But all that stuff is temporary anyway. What the Holy Spirit gives is eternal. That is Jesus and everything that is his.
Heavenly Father, grant us the Holy Spirit so we may rightly praise Jesus all our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.