Rejoice When You Are Hated

Jesus said, “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great isyour reward in heaven” (Mt. 5:11-12). Elsewhere, “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” (Jn. 15:19). 

Jesus said that we should expect to be hated by the world, and He said when the world shows that hate, through reviling, smearing, slandering, and lying their heads off, our response must be first and foremost rejoicing. There may be other responses to take as well. There are times for responding to the false accusations and bigotry, sometimes through private conversation, sometimes through public statement, and sometimes through legal litigation, but the foundational tone prior to any response must be joy. Jesus says that it is a blessing to be reviled and persecuted, and He says that we should rejoice not because we take some kind of masochistic delight in being mistreated. No, Jesus says we are to rejoice and be exceeding glad because great is our reward in Heaven. 

When you are training for a competition or a fight, you do not rejoice in the pain of training simply for the pain itself. You rejoice in the pain because you know what it’s for: it’s preparing You for glory. The Bible says that this is true of all hardship in this life: these light afflictions are working for us an eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17). Again, this doesn’t mean we do not sometimes have work to do to defend what God has entrusted to us, but we must care and defend obediently. And the central characteristic that we are commanded to take up is joy. If joy is not driving your response and resistance, it isn’t a Christian response or Christian resistance. Joy is what allows us to walk away whistling, and joy is what allows us to see the appropriate response. We must not be fearful or wrathful. Jesus commands us to rejoice.

Photo by Caju Gomes on Unsplash