Jesus Chose Those Whom the Father Loved

What Did Jesus Do?


“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you...
Whoever hates me hates my Father also.”
John 15.18,23

Have you ever wondered why Jesus placed so much importance on his disciples loving one another? I believe it was because he knew that hate was all they would receive from the world, and from all who are of the world (John 15.19). Now, before we fault the world, I point out that its behavior is somewhat similar to the Father's. The world loves its own, and the Father loves his own. Where the Father and the world are, well, world's apart, is that the Father loved those who hated him, while the world hated the One who loved it like no one else ever has or ever could.

The world, of course, will try and deny, “Hate you? Don't be silly, we don't hate you. It's Jesus we can't stand.” The question is, how do we feel about being on the receiving end of the world's enmity on account of the name of Jesus? The apostles counted it as cause for rejoicing to be considered worthy to suffer for the sake of the name (Acts 5.41), and Paul considered it his highest privilege to share in Christ's sufferings (see Philippians 3.7-11).

For his part Jesus, in choosing those whom the Father loved, knew full well that as the world would persecute him, so it would persecute his followers, and he reminded us that as it goes with the master, so it will go with his servants (John 15.20). In effect, Jesus coined the phrase, “No good deed goes unpunished,” when he pointed out that he was hated by the world for doing (good) works no one had ever seen before (John 15.24), even as the Psalmist had foreseen (Psalm 35.19).

So, again, how do we feel about the world hating us? If we try to avoid the world's animosity by being its friend, by loving the world as the world would be loved, we might not be the kind of disciple of Jesus we imagine ourselves to be. It's in loving the world like Jesus loved the world that we draw the world's ire. Are we loving like Jesus? I tell you, that is why he has chosen us, because, having known the love of the Father in and through the Son, we consider it our highest calling to love as we have been loved, though it earns us nothing but the world's hatred. And this lack of love from the world is why Jesus so emphasized the importance of his followers loving one another (John 1334; 15.17). It's the toughest, and greatest, love we'll ever know—direct to us from the Father in and through the Son.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4