Outsiders

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, he world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” John 15:18-19



We don’t get a choice in being hated or not. As Christians we are naturally the outsiders, the misfits, the one’s that look different.

The withdrawal at the mention of what you are, “Christian.” The hesitation in their eyes at the mention of that name, his name, “Jesus.” The eagerness to die for the Gospel and willingness to let everything go to see the shadow of everything pass away.

But Jesus is the one who picks us out of the world to be outsiders and misfits.
He is the one who saves us so it should be that he is the one who chooses us.

As Christians we’ll be hated, things won’t ever be in our favor because we believe, we’ll suffer, we’ll die, and we’ll be abandoned and cold. Yet we expect things to be fine and dandy, happy clappy fluffy fun for all of life.

If that’s your reason for being Christian then don’t stick around.

Last I saw the word hated doesn’t mean fine and dandy, it means to be passionately disliked, you know the kind of dislike with a bullet not a teddy bear.

Out of the world he chose us to be castaways in a far land, outsiders in our own communities.

Because as outsiders we are insiders, we’re in the favor of God the salvation of Jesus. As misfits of the world we are suited quite nicely for the wardrobe as sons and daughters of the King.