October 22: John 15:18-21
 
Key Verse: John 5:19
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
 
Devotion:
Do you have a fear of people finding out you are a Christian and mocking you, or worse, doing something horrible to you? Because we are different, we are Christians, the world will look at us as being odd in some way! Anyone who is different is treated differently, but the more people cannot understand us or cannot relate to the way we live, the more they may reject us as being too different.
 
This sometimes causes people to act like they are still of this world instead of being different. The world sees these people as nothing different and may not even take notice of them. As Christians we should be standing up to show we are different and give people something to think about. This does mean we may face rejection by some people. This is to be expected!
 
Jesus was rejected by many people, including what was seen as the ‘church’ back them. Unfortunately, this was not the church but a religion which had grown up because people did not want to be seen as being too different... they were doing things like ‘normal’ people by keeping laws which they had made up rather than obeying what God was asking of them.
 
We need to stop acting like others and start acting a bit more like Jesus. I have a T-Shirt which says “Jesus was a rebel too!” Jesus stood out from the crowd because He did not give in to the worldly ways but stood up for God (and not the religion) by obeying God. Because of our fear of the world and people, we tend to give in to something instead of standing firm in God’s Word and being more like Jesus.
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you fear what people say about you?
 
Why not give people something to talk about by being more like Jesus?