Popularity Contest

“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 that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.”

- John 15:18-20, NKJV

Does the world love you for all that you do, are doing, and will do? Does it welcome you in with open arms because you walk in line with its tenets? If so then perhaps it’s time you examined just who and what you are trying to please. Know that as a Christian this thing called life isn’t a popularity contest in that you are not here to please the world, rather to obey and please God. Understand that as good as it feels to be lauded and exalted by the people/things of the world it all comes to nothing if you lose your soul - When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:34-38, NKJV). Fortunately, God’s walk is not a lonely one just set apart from the things of this world and replaced with His righteousness. As a result, let God and Him alone define who and what you are…knowing that in the end His opinion is the only one that truly matters.

BE BLESSED!