REPROACHED BUT REJOICING

Partakers of Christ’s Sufferings 1 Peter 4:13.

The true Christian soon discovers that following the Lord Jesus is not a popular calling, for Christ was crucified by the world and the world loves Him no more now than then. His standards are so different from those of the world and His objective is completely different, for while men of this world serve and please themselves, Christ lived only to please God — and the Christian is called to do likewise.

Here then is a challenge which confronts the Christian soon after his conversion, if not before; and indeed it may be a constantly repeated challenge all through life. It is this, am I a follower of God which means living a life which is very different from that of my neighbor and my business associate, or am I content to be little, if any different from the unsaved? If we purpose to be true Christians, then our path is with the Lord, in separation from the world. This means something of shame and reproach; we shall be dubbed old fashioned, slow, awkward and unsociable; and while we must not seek to be such yet if we are true in our life and witness we shall certainly find ourselves marked men an dwomen, both in the office and the shop or wherever we may be. But the comfort which is ours is that we are sharing the reproach and rejection of Christ, and that means we are near Him and pleasing Him.

If we are at present being ostracized and reproached for Christ’s sake, let us rejoice. Are we called old-fashioned? Then so is the sunshine, and old well-tried things are not lightly to be discarded. Are we unsociable? It is only because we are living in a fallen world which lieth in the evil one. The Spirit of glory and of grace rests upon us, on their part Christ may be rejected and disowned but on our part He is glorified. Let us count it a privilege and not a shame to be associated with the Lord of Glory.

— Fred Mitchell in Things Concerning Himself

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