John 15:18-19 “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”
We may be asking ourselves what the word “hate” means in this passage.
It is to detest (especially to persecute), to pursue with hatred.
This doesn’t seem quite right to us. Too many of us spend our time seeking to be loved by the world.
What is the world then?
It could be summed up as “the aggregate of all things earthly.” Not what is heavenly, not what comes from God, but what is common to sinful man.
The world’s system, with all its ungodliness will hate Godliness and those which are Godly.
We should not be shaped by the world or ever seek approval from the world, for we are not of this world. We are His.
And it should not come as a shock when we are personally hated and our beliefs and testimonies are despised and mocked.
John 15:18-19 “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.”