Hostility & Maltreatment: the biblical sketch of the Christian life
Think back to those early days when you came to Christ. Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant suffering terrible hardships, distress and hostility? Yet you stood your ground while you were suffering from an enormous amount of pressure.
Persecutions and afflictions reminds us of the difficulties in the pathway of the believers, who are stationed in this world.
We need endurance!
Endurance is the call of life. Nothing about walking with God is ever pictured as easy or one-sided.
Think about all the people who followed the Lord in the past. Which of them had an easy life? Which of them had a comfortable life? Which of them did not have to endure for the sake of the Lord?
Jesus Christ, Himself-had to endure. He showed great endurance through rejection, suffering, and even death.
God is telling us that trials are going to happen. Suffering is going to happen. Life is going to be hard, but we need to endure so that we will receive what is promised. We cannot bail out during difficulties.
American Christians for many years have bought into the false view of the Christian life, that emphasizes the benefits of the faith in this life.
We’re told, “God offers an abundant plan for your life. Trust in Jesus and He will help you overcome all of your problems and enjoy life to the fullest!”
Jesus is marketed as the solution to everything from weight loss, to success in business, to having a happy marriage.
The sales pitch is that receiving Christ will bring you the greatest happiness in this life. Somehow, getting treated bad and losing your material possessions and maybe your life, doesn’t harmonize with that message!
Most of us signed up for the prosperity plan, not for the persecution plan! If we encounter difficult trials, we get angry at God or His messengers, and maybe even decide, “If that’s the way He’s going to treat me, I’m not going to follow Him! Hardship, persecution, and suffering aren’t in the deal that I signed up for!”
How could we have strayed so far from the biblical picture of the Kingdom life?
It is often paralleled as to a fight, or as being in a war, neither of which are pleasant. Many passages tell us to expect trials and hardship.
The abundant life that Jesus promised has nothing to do with a trouble-free life, but rather with having His joy and triumph, in the midst of any tribulation.
He stated plainly the requirements for following Him:
Deny yourself and;
Take up your cross daily
The Cross for Jesus, was not a slightly irritating circumstance; it was an instrument of slow, tortuous death!
Remember the parable of the sower that Jesus described, was the seed of the Word as sown in four types of soil:
Some fell beside the road, where the birds ate it, so that it never took root and sprouted. This represents unbelievers who hear the gospel, but do not understand or believe it.
Other seed fell on the rocky ground, where there was no depth of soil. It quickly sprang up, but it had no roots, and so it withered. This represents those who hear the Word and immediately receive it with joy. But when affliction or persecution arises, they quickly fall away.
The third soil is infested with thorns. The seed sprouts, but the thorns, representing worries, riches, and pleasures of this life, choke out the word so that it does not bring forth any fruit.
The fourth type is good soil, representing those who hear, understand, and accept the Word, and bear fruit with perseverance.
In my understanding, only the fourth type of soil represents true believers who have the faith to preserve them.
The rocky soil and the thorny soil both make a profession of faith for a while but eventually, they “shrink back to destruction.”
In other words, genuine faith endures trials and bears fruit
The amount of fruit will vary (a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty), but there will be observable evidence of a transformed heart.
True believers may fail under pressure, as Peter did when he denied Jesus, but if God has changed your heart, and if you are abiding in the vine, you will consistently repent for sins committed, endure in faith, and bear fruit.
As you know, when someone totally embraces Jesus, he is often—ridiculed and rejected by all of his friends and family.
The Apostle Paul says:
“If there is no heaven, if this life is all there is, being a Christian is ludicrous! Why suffer ridicule? Why give your money away? Why spend this short life serving the Lord? Why deny yourself the pleasures of sin? Why bother living for anyone other than yourself? Then it ‘is’ better to eat and drink today, for tomorrow you may die.
But, a Christian knows that this life is not all there is. Christians have shifted their priorities and values from the temporal (world-life), to the eternal (spiritual-life).
We are innately born self-centered. Every unbeliever lives for him or herself. If helping someone will get them some advantage, they’ll do it. Their overall aim in life is to be happy and get ahead, even if it means stepping on others at times.
So do not throw away your BOLDNESS and confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it will bring you!
He is not talking about confidence in yourself, but confidence in Jesus Christ.
I have heard many Christians say, “You’ve got to believe in yourself!” That is a world’s idea, but not a biblical one! Our confidence is in our God, and he exhorted us to “hold fast our confidence and the boldness of believing in Him, firm until the affliction & persecution ends".
We must maintain and testify to a settled assurance of the truth of the gospel, in the face of persecutions, trials and hostility.
Under the pressure of bad treatment, it is easy to justify moral compromise, but the one who shrinks back is precisely the one who is puffed up with his own self-sufficiency and is therefore blind to the need of trust and patient endurance.
Remember, once you have been enlightened through the the scriptures…afterwards you will get attacked by the thief of the word, to steal that seed of truth-(no truth, no victory), both by reproaches and hostilities, especially if the revelations was powerful!
Many of you can probably relate to this. For example: you get slighted, false things will be said to, or about you, as you identify with Christ—you will be called and labeled as “crazy-(mentally deranged, especially as manifested in a wild or aggressive way),” ‘a know-it-all,” “self-righteous,” “a killjoy,” “weak,” “arrogant,”. Perhaps your family continue to ridicule your faith.
Am I talking to anybody??
So in conclusion, focus on doing God’s will, especially when hostilities and mal-treatments tempt you to compromise.
Live with continuing faith in God and He will preserve and strengthen you, through every trial and give you the promised victory and inheritance.