The Christian life is the best life to live. Conversely, when we live as our Father wants us to live, we will be ridiculed for what we believe. It is a given. Our Lord taught us it would happen. However, when it happens, and it will, we know He is with us to comfort and encourage our hearts, even though during those times we feel the world is against us. But the faithful Christian is never alone. It just feels like it sometimes. We can either let it destroy our faith, or encourage us persevere as a soldier of the cross, keep trusting in Him and move forward in the battle between right an wrong.
“Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Luke 6:26)
“Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” (II Timothy 3:12)
Many times, though not always, those who ridicule, make sport of, talk badly to us or about us, or curse us, is born of envy, though the person or persons would never want to admit it. They have a battle going on within themselves. In one sense they would like to be as a faithful Christian, but the world has such a pull they scoff at Christianity instead. They really would like to find the peace which a faithful Christian has but this too is hard for them to admit. Darkness hates the light, but light dispels darkness.
“The devil doesn’t persecute those who aren’t making a godly difference in the world.” ~ Chappell
“And the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5)
“Recently I attended a funeral in which the minister said of the deceased, “No one ever spoke an ill word of our beloved.” He meant that sentence as a compliment, but was it?
This could not be said of the apostle Paul. He was called a babbler and a troublemaker. Finally he was led outside the gates of Rome and beheaded because of his unyielding faith and uncompromising convictions.
Neither could this compliment be paid to Jesus. He was accused of working in conjunction with Beelzebub, the prince of the devils. Public favor so turned against Him that He was crucified.
When a person has the praise of all people (there are many kinds), he has been so flexible and so wiggly as to bend out of true form. As seen in the above passage, it places a person under the condemnation of the Bible and tags him as one we should avoid.
Paul knew enough about people to know that his expressed belief could precipitate ruffled feelings and strong opposition; nevertheless he spoke out.
“Am I become your enemy because I tell you the Truth?” (Galatians 4:16)
When no one ever speaks a harmful word against you it indicates that: You haven’t done much. Or you have no convictions. Or you are afraid to speak up. In any case, it is not complimentary.” ~ Leroy Brownlow
“It has become a settled principle that nothing which is good and true can be destroyed by persecution, but that the effect ultimately is to establish more firmly, and to spread more widely, that which it was designed to overthrow. It has long since passed into a proverb that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” ~ Barnes
Eileen Light