From January 12, 2015
John 15:23 – “He who hates me hates my Father as well.”
Hatred sometimes seems to be too strong a word, I think to myself sometimes. “Irrelevant” may be closer to the mark, I tell myself. But underneath the belief that people have that religion in general and Christianity in particular is ‘irrelevant’ is – I have to admit – hatred, animosity, real visceral opposition. “Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?” (James 4:4). So we must not let down our guard. For the move is on in our culture to neuter, even eliminate religion from all of society. Last night on the Golden Globes, you could feel it. Religion is not welcome. What we saw last night on display was the idolatry of freedom. “Give us freedom of expression! Freedom from boundaries! Freedom from morality!” Freedom corrupted, freedom unshackled from responsibility, is the god of this age in America.
We must steel ourselves to face this. It’s only going to get tougher. If we can’t run with men, how will we be able to run with horses? (Jeremiah 12:5). Hollywood will be rank with it. When you say to yourself as a believer, “Surely they’ll understand this, surely they’ll respond to this. It’s so clear, so provable, so real!” Yet they’ll turn away. We don’t follow Jesus to be popular.