Join us as we read the scriptures and a daily devotion written by Don Crisp. We pray these messages will bless us all at this time.
Day 17 – John 15:18-21
Categories: Don’s Daily Devotions
Read John 15:18-21
V18: Jesus now seeks to prepare them for living in a hostile world once He is gone from them – a world that will hate them, because it hated Him. It is still true that Christ’s people are living in a
hostile world. For some that means direct persecution, but for all believers there will be some experience of the hostility of this world, because…
V19: …those whom Christ has chosen and saved no longer are part of a world that is under Satan’s sway (1 John 5:19.) So, they will find hostility in some way because this world is no longer where they truly belong – they belong to Christ. Do we sometimes seem to be too much ” at home” in this world, rather than as distinct as we should be as Christ’s redeemed?.
V20: What was true of Jesus, our Master, is true of His followers too. We cannot expect better treatment than Him. But some did receive His Word and, by God’s grace keep it, these disciples themselves and that wider group of believers we get glimpses of in the gospels. So, surely He is saying there will be some who hear, respond to and obey the truth, by God’s grace, in their future ministries – and in ours too.
V21: All the opposition, marginalisation, mockery and persecution of any kind we face, is because they reject Him and His Father, and bearing His Name, we can expect nothing else. These verses present the NT norm of Christian experience. Perhaps we have forgotten that today.