The Gospel Of Repentance

There are things that God promised us as Christians that we will never care to claim, such as tribulation (John 16:33).  Under that title umbrella, we discover suffering as a promise and believe it or not a gift of God. Two reasons I will give why we suffer as believers are 1) we are children of God and 2) because we identify with Christ. In John 15:18-21 Jesus says this, “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. Remember the word I said to you, a servant is not greater than his Master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake, because they do not know him who sent me.” So, because we are children of the Most High, we automatically have a target on our backs from the...

This is very extreme language wouldn’t you agree? This is antithetical to what Jesus and the Bible commands, that we are to love one another – even our enemies. So, why in the world would Jesus demand that we must be willing to hate those most precious to us to be his disciple? On the surface this demand seems awfully discouraging, but I have learned and continue to learn that Jesus is perfect in all his ways. So even if he says something that admittedly offends my sense of ethics, there is perfect wisdom attached to his statement(s). In Luke 14:26-27 we read, “If any comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. The word hate is the Greek word miseo. Most common meaning of the word is to be malicious with unjustified feelings of evil toward someone. In relation to our text it means to pr...