Hated by the World

[friend of]

John 15:18-19
"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

Does anyone feel particularly hated in this world? I sure do. From both Christian's and non-Christian's alike. It feels like everyone is constantly waiting for me to slip up. It feels like whenever I make a mistake the world is quick to pounce and say "Ah ha! Some Christian you are." and then Christianity is blasphemed because of me and my mistake, and this just makes me feel terrible, that I'm contributing to giving Christianity a bad image. I'm only human, ya know? I'm not perfect. I'm trying to be a good person, but I feel like I'm held to a different standard to which nobody else is held. The world looks on forgiveness toward its own. But to me there is no leniency whatsoever. My own brother is always quick to jump on my faults. It's hard to handle that even he doesn't deal with me with patience nor love. |I hardly have many people in my life as it is. I'm not popular at all. It feels like people are just going to continue to leave me and then I'll be on my own, friendless (ironic) alone, unwanted, an outcast in society. I've been thinking, maybe Jesus felt the same way when He was young, and maybe some of the content in Psalms speak on a young Jesus and His interaction with a sinful world that would have cast abuse on Him for not joining them in the ways of the world.

For example, I had a so-called friend recently (non-Christian) ask me to go to the store to buy him a $300 pair of sunglasses. I didn't feel like running this errand for him, so I asked him for $20 then $40 to which he said no, which I expected. I just really didn't want to do that for him, cuz what if I bought a pair and he didn't like them and wanted me to return them? A big hassle either way. But now he's told some other young Christian men from my church and now they think I'm a bad person. I tried apologizing but he demanded I pay him $40 just for his forgiveness. If he can't forgive me for asking for $40 then I figure it's not worth it to even be friends with him anymore, especially for sowing discord between brethren behind my back. So yeah, now I'm a bad guy to a bunch of people I would have liked to be on good terms with as members of the same congregation. But nooooooo. Now I'm a bad person. If I was in his position I would forgive in a heartbeat. Nice try and everything. And asking me for $40 for my forgiveness is just plain hypocritical in any case. Whatever.

Are you in the same boat? Do you have a rich social life with friends and loving kindness toward you? Cherish that if you have it as that is a blessing because being a lone wolf is overrated.

 

[justbyfaith]

Have you tried going to a Calvary Chapel in your area?

I find that the people at this denomination are very loving and accepting of people.

It may just be my local congregation.

 

[Brakelite]

God does not want you to be friendless. His word, it is not good for man to be alone, doesn't only apply to marriage. If you don't have friends in your local congregation , there can only be two reasons. First, and sorry to have to suggest this, it may be because you haven't shown yourself friendly. Which seems unlikely when reading your post above. The second, you're in the wrong church. God, by revealing to you your own loneliness, may be leading you elsewhere where he has people prepared for you that they may make you their own. I have been in that situation. Twice. The first time resulted in a change in the city I was living in...I moved 250 miles and found my wife... The second resulted in my changing denomination. Both moves changed my life profoundly for the better. I would pray and give your current situation consideration and ask God to lead you to where He wants you to be... And He will always be your friend wherever you are.

 

[theophilus]

For example, I had a so-called friend recently (non-Christian) ask me to go to the store to buy him a $300 pair of sunglasses. I didn't feel like running this errand for him, so I asked him for $20 then $40 to which he said no, which I expected. I just really didn't want to do that for him, cuz what if I bought a pair and he didn't like them and wanted me to return them? A big hassle either way. But now he's told some other young Christian men from my church and now they think I'm a bad person. I tried apologizing but he demanded I pay him $40 just for his forgiveness. If he can't forgive me for asking for $40 then I figure it's not worth it to even be friends with him anymore, especially for sowing discord between brethren behind my back. So yeah, now I'm a bad guy to a bunch of people I would have liked to be on good terms with as members of the same congregation. But nooooooo. Now I'm a bad person. If I was in his position I would forgive in a heartbeat. Nice try and everything. And asking me for $40 for my forgiveness is just plain hypocritical in any case. Whatever.

Why do you consider this person a friend? I don't see any reason you need to apologize to him at all. When he asked you to buy the sunglasses for him, did he give you any reason he couldn't have gone to the store himself to get them?

 

[amadeus]

@friend of

Can we walk with God alone? Yes!
Should we walk with God alone? No!

But in spite of those answers, compromise is not allowed!

"From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?" John 6:66-67

Jesus was at the time teaching a very hard message about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Many people did not understand and many, who had been his followers, left him. He then asked his closest followers, the twelve, if they would also leave. His question tells us clearly, I believe, that Jesus would have walked on with no man by his side before he would compromise. In that moment he did not have walk on alone as Peter makes clear in the next verse:

"Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life." John 6:68

Peter had a good and correct answer yet this is the same Peter who later deny Jesus three times before men because Peter was still a man with fear of what men could and would do to him.

Now most of us here on this forum probably are somewhere between where Peter was when he denied Jesus as he had not the ability, the power, to stand firmly even on what his heart told was correct... and where Jesus was here:

"And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." Matt 26:39

Three times Jesus prayed that same way to his Father after the third time having overcome, as I see it, that last obstacle of temptation remaining in him as a man of flesh. Here is the result:

"These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33

The world of flesh hated/hates the way that Jesus chose to travel, but, nevertheless, Jesus chose the Way that his Father set before him and walked it... even though at the end...walking to the cross, which man was walking with him? He was 33 years old and what had he received or obtained of any 'good' things in the world of men on planet Earth? No wife! No natural children! No place to lay his head! No friends who would never run away when he was facing terrible painful physical suffering and death! No future as man but that terrible death!

Does God expect and require us to do the same thing? What does Paul write?

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Rom 12:1

@friend of
What is the cost of retaining a friendship with an unbeliever? What do you do when you cannot find a believer who is willing to stand with you through 'thick and thin'? Stand all alone?

"A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." Prov 18:24

Yes, there is such a friend, but perhaps the only one we may have met is Jesus? So then we, when do not know Jesus that well, or not know him at all, or we have known him but have backed away from him... then we have found ourselves very lonely indeed. Believe me I have been in those places.

Over the years I have had a multitude of acquaintances, but to number those who I might call truly 'friend' would not require the fingers of one hand and I am no youngster [76]... All but one of those close ones are gone now... and that one lives 1500 miles away.

Are my words hard to you @friend of ? Consider these words penned by Paul:

"If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." I Cor 15:19

So then don't sit back and mope because things are not more comfortable now... Rather seek first things first and retain always Hope in Christ even when you cannot see or feel anything comforting at all:

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matt 11:28-30

 

[Hidden In Him]

Does anyone feel particularly hated in this world? I sure do. From both Christian's and non-Christian's alike. It feels like everyone is constantly waiting for me to slip up. It feels like whenever I make a mistake the world is quick to pounce and say "Ah ha! Some Christian you are."

We are all built different, brother. But let me encourage you with something. The closer you get to the Lord, the more the Spirit of a conquerer rises up within you. Granted you must depart from sin, or the enemy will use it to separate you from He who is your Strength. But in Christ you increasingly come to a place where you defiantly stand in the face of every enemy, of every condemning voice, and grin. Even should they get the upper hand for a moment, something in you is looking down the barrel at their end and their destruction if they persist in opposing a child of the Living God. So you pray for your enemies, because theirs is the fate they need to be concerned with.

Should you need a brother, I am there for you.
Hidden

 

[friend of]

Thanks Hidden