Transformed: A 9-Day Plan on Jesus’ Sermon on the PlainMuestra

THE BLESSING OF PERSECUTION

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.” LUKE 6:22-23 (ESV)

It is a truth self-evident to almost all of us that it is immensely important for people to like us. So it comes as a shock to learn that Jesus taught emphatically about the blessing we will come to know when others hate us, exclude us, and insult us “on account of the Son of Man.”

It’s because of our relationship with Jesus that such condemnation comes. In fact, Jesus described something that will be true of every believer: when we stand with Christ, we will be rejected by the world. Jesus develops this truth elsewhere in Scripture. For example, the night before He died, He reminded His followers that the world hated Him before it hated them and that, as His servants, they (and we) must expect the same persecution that our Lord experienced (John 15:18-20).

You may have experienced such persecution at school; maybe you took a stand for the Bible, and then you suddenly found yourself isolated from your peer group. You may have tasted the pain of being ostracized by a friendship group, or passed over for promotion at work, because you had explained to someone who Jesus is, why He died, and what that means. You may even know the pain of being spurned by members of your own family because of your faith. If you stand up and stand out for Christ, then ever so subtly and yet so very clearly the hatred begins to spill out, and the sense of scorn is nearly overwhelming.

There is nothing easy or enjoyable about being maligned or left out when we live in obedience to God. Indeed, there is great heartache that accompanies rejection. How, then, are we to find blessing and comfort in its midst?

We must cling to the truth Jesus speaks of here: that when we find ourselves on the receiving end of the world’s hatred as a response to our faithfulness to the Son of Man, nothing has gone wrong: we are, in fact, in a place to know blessing. In other words, this sort of mistreatment is tangible evidence of our genuine faith and relationship with the Lord. Furthermore, Jesus promises that if we acknowledge Him before men, He will also acknowledge us before His Father in heaven (Matthew 10:32).

The man or woman who leads a holy life—who is prepared to speak and obey God’s word with boldness and who refuses to seek the nonexistent middle way between an obedient life and a popular one—will eventually collide with the ungodly and incur the enmity of the world. How are you being called to risk rejection in order to speak of Christ or live for Christ? Do not lose heart! Instead, respond to slander against you or dislike of you on account of the gospel by rejoicing, “for behold, your reward is great in heaven.” The world has nothing to offer that comes close to comparing with that.

• How is God calling me to think differently?
• How is God reordering my heart’s affections—what I love?
• What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?