Get a clue believers: This world is your enemy. You aren’t this world’s enemy; you are one of its best friends. But it has made itself the enemy of your Father, your Savior and yourself.
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. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, “They hated Me without a cause.” (John 15:18-25 NKJV)
You do the world no favors by acting as it does. Granted, there are some things humans do regardless of their orientation, but there are plenty of things this world does specifically because it rejects divine revelation. We have a duty to discern those things, and sometimes to point them out as such. A true believer cannot afford to give approval to systems and ideas contrary to divine revelation.
On the other hand, the whole concept of having a witness is mostly a matter of simply living the Word in defiance of the world’s ways. It doesn’t have to make sense to people who don’t walk the heart-led path of faith, but our habits must be consistent with the path back to Eden. We belong to a different culture because we belong in a different world, and we must manifest that difference. This is our message.
Stop clinging to this life, this world. There is nothing here that will be remembered in Eternity, except those things you do for the Lord’s glory. The most precious treasure of all will be the souls you touched, the people who were moved to embrace the Kingdom because of your otherworldly witness. Stir their hearts by a commitment to a way of life that often makes no sense at all in terms of human reason. Reason is the place we fell to in the Fall, dropping out of the Garden of Eden where divine revelation dominates.
Genuine faith makes the most audacious and unreasonable demands. Living by those demands will draw the contempt and anger of this world because it brings conviction and discomfort. Stop trying to make sense to them; they are not your friends.
