I am a truly born again Christian, but nobody hates me!

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever! [Heb13:8]. The
Lord has not changed and neither will the effects caused by His words
ever change! In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle affirms, “But as
then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after
the Spirit, even so it is now”! [Gal 4:29].

The Christian is one who is born after the Spirit. And almost every
‘born-again’ child of God when he initially becomes a Christian has
testified of the hatred that he felt from his family and loved ones. He is
then glad to relate to his Master’s Words, “The servant is not greater
than his Lord. If they have persecuted Me, they will also persecute you”
[John 15:20].

This persecution and hatred is only experienced by those who are

making every effort to live like their Master! But if we are unfaithful
by hiding our light under a bushel and are compromising the truth by
attempting to serve two masters then we can successfully escape “the
reproach of Christ”! He was hated by the world and has called us to
fellowship with His sufferings. And it is only, “All those who live godly
in Christ Jesus who suffer persecution! [2Tim 3;12].

The Church of the Lord Jesus was meant to be the "pillar and ground of
the truth" [I Tim. 3:15]. Just as the Lord Jesus came to bear witness to
the truth, even so, Christians are commanded to preach the whole truth
which is synonymous to ‘sound doctrine’. And like everything else
sound doctrine has two sides to it, the sweet and the bitter. When the
Word of God says that, "men will not endure sound doctrine" [II Tim.
4:3], it usually means the bitter side of sound doctrine. As we have said
many times, men will most eagerly welcome the doctrine of election but
will not endure its opposite i.e., Reprobation! They will be glad to hear
sermons on the obedience Christ rendered to God, but will not endure
a challenging message on the obedience He requires from them! They
will eagerly welcome a doctrine which emphasizes the Lord’s blessings
but will want nothing to do with one that demands the cost of
discipleship.

The Master told His own brothers born to Mary, “The world cannot hate
you; but Me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof
are evil”! [John 7:7]

I as a Christian have to constantly ask myself – “Has my gold become

dim and my silver turned to dross”? “Is the light that is in me, now
darkness, and has my salt lost its savour”? To lose our zeal and first love
for Christ is no small thing! It is the same as being ashamed of Him and
forsaking him for a ‘mess of pottage’ like Esau. It is something to be
repented of!

Of the saints at Rome Paul could say “your faith is spoken of throughout
the whole world” [Romans 1:8], while to the Galatians he complained
“ye did run well, who did hinder you?” (Galatians 5:7). To the
Thessalonians he could say “Your faith groweth exceedingly” [2
Thessalonians 1:3], but of the Ephesians it is recorded “thou hast left thy
first love” [Revelation 2:4].

The Master said that if you deny Him before men, He will deny you
before His father and His angels. To deny Christ is to compromise and
not speak out against the evil in your own house but be a partaker or a
silent spectator!

Time was when you said with David, “I will walk within my house with
a perfect heart. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the
work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me. I have not sat with
vain persons, I will not sit with the wicked’! [Psa 101:2,3; 26:4,5].
But now you are pretty comfortable sitting with your ‘family’ and
watching Ophrah Winfrey deny your Lord (who shed His blood for
you), your favorite ‘Actor’ kissing and fondling another man’s wife, or
watching some horror movie in which some maniac is ripping out
somebody’s guts! None of this bothers you anymore! Your conscience is
seared with a hot iron! [1Tim 4:1]

Time was when you renounced your father’s Roman Catholicism and
preached against it at every given opportunity! But now you are quite
comfortable sitting in their ‘prayer meetings’ and celebrating their pagan
festivals, like Christmas and Easter!

Time was when you told your son or daughter to stop playing the
Devil’s music in your house or leave! But now you’ve learnt to live with
it and even give them money to buy their Rock music records and Harry
Potter books!

You have now become ‘wise’ and have realized that if you continue to
take a zealous stand for the Lord, you might wind up losing your loved
ones. So you have learnt to live with it. You know in your heart that to
take a stand for all that Scripture demands of you would mean to lose
your loved one. And that is a hard saying for you. You want to be
Christ’s disciple but are not willing to pay the price. ‘From that time
many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with Him’. [Jn
6:66] Are you one of them? Am I one of them?

Let me close by saying, a disciple is one who continues with Christ,

taking a stand for Him at the cost of everything and everyone he holds
dear. Where the rubber meets the road the true disciple of Christ is even
willing to hate his ‘loved ones’ in comparison to His Lord who bled and
died for him!

And there went great multitudes with Him: and He turned, and said
unto them, If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and
mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
his own life also, he cannot be My disciple! [Luke 14:25, 26]

For further reading –

Mike Jeshurun’s Blog!