How many times have we as born-again believers warned, and warned, and warned only to be reviled for our love for those we warn. My guess is too many times to count.
"Christian" churches are not concerned about obeying Christ or humbling themselves to be changed by Him. They want only to feel safe and comfortable while remaining loved by the culture around them.
Did you know John the Baptizer was beheaded for telling Herod and Herodius of their adulterous unlawful marriage?
How many of us would be beheaded today if those around us had the power to do it. Since they do not have the power to kill us as they wish they use other tactics to try to destroy us.
The tactics in this modern time is reviling, dismissiveness, mocking, excluding, withholding of affection, gossip, gaslighting, and much more to cause us to become intimidated into silence.
These manipulations to hurt authentic believers are because of the hatred people have toward those who bring the Scriptures to bear on any discussion or problem.
God calls this hatred a form of murder.
1 John 3:14-16 "…14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that eternal life does not reside in a murderer. 16 By this we know what love is: Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."
John 15:18-25
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but 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. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ..."
Never allow those who hate us manipulate you into becoming like them through any response to them except that which is from God through the Holy Spirit.
Bless those who curse you, either with a Holy Spirit correction or refusing to fight with them. Walk away from those who will not listen to the truth of Scripture and who continually cause trouble to insight you. Do not allow them to cause anger in you, do not allow them to provoke an ungodly response. The best thing to do when in the company of a divisive and angry person is to walk away and stay away from them.
2 Timothy 3:1-5
Difficult (ragingly insane) Times Will Come
3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,
3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,
4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 holding to a form of godliness although they have denied its power; avoid such people as these."
This is the mentality of the world around us right now, only we are unsure of what we see because we have been living in it all our lives and want to believe perhaps we are not seeing it right, perhaps there is some good in these people. Because we love to obey Christ and walk in His ways we have a hard time facing that the world as a whole is wicked.
These last days are difficult for us because we hate evil and it is all around us all the time. It plays out in our lives continually as the families are destroyed by the devil and we are reviled for saying so.
These last days are difficult because it is hard to find those who love Christ as much as we do and those who claim they are Christians do not love Him as they say, their words do not match their attitudes of arrogance and revenge.
When we can stand back and see everything for what it is through the lens of the Word of God we can detach, not taking things personally even though we grieve at times as Lot and the prophets of old. They lived their lives primarily alone without much support and grieved and wept over those around them who loved themselves more than they loved God.
The prophets did not grieve over the mistreatment, they grieved over the hearts of people who refused to love God and obey Him. It wasn't about them at all, it was about the heart they had for the lost and their desire for people to listen to their warnings.
Keep warming, keep seeking Christ and learn to be alone in it in these last days where there is little faith left upon the earth.
