If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.

John 15:19

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

So the question is, who is "of the world"?

Well, it's not difficult to discern. Just look at who is loved, exalted, and protected by Hollywood, media, and big tech.

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Political thread ok??

Is there any reason why we need to be concerned about the affairs of this world? It is no longer I that lives, but Christ who lives in me as the world is not my home, but only traveling through it until the last day when Christ returns and takes us to our eternal home in the New Jerusalem.

I'm supposed to hate Obama because I'm Christian?

Wouldn't this apply to anyone who is a household name? Democrat and Republican alike?

There are many out there that are "of the world," and we can tell this by the fruit they produce. Sometimes they were also people we once believed were Christian, but now have revoked that they were and have openly said they aren't.

I love the verse, though. I sometimes take comfort in it. Part of me thinks, "This world is so hard to deal with sometimes, but wait a minute - we aren't of this world." Who we are sets us apart, not because we are better or have more value, but because we believe in God with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths and know that one day we will be with Him.

Luminous_Rose said:

There are many out there that are "of the world," and we can tell this by the fruit they produce. Sometimes they were also people we once believed were Christian, but now have revoked that they were and have openly said they aren't.

I love the verse, though. I sometimes take comfort in it. Part of me thinks, "This world is so hard to deal with sometimes, but wait a minute - we aren't of this world." Who we are sets us apart, not because we are better or have more value, but because we believe in God with all of our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths and know that one day we will be with Him.

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Reminds me of a picture I made when I was 18. I produced it a few years after my suicide attempt. I had run away and had come back after several months. I was in a very dark place in my miserable life. I drew it as a scene in a graveyard. The ground was covered in a fog with tombstones sticking up out of it. There was a very slight rise on the center-left with a dead tree. All that was left of the tree was one large crooked branch about shoulder high sticking up at an angle. Only the trunk was left besides that. In the trunk was a large hole. Walking away from the trunk was a black figure with his head and arms raised to the sky with clinched fists. One one the graves had a lid partially opened with an arm holding it.
After decades, I realized I had made a self portrait. I was walking away from my mother. She liked to have one arm raised as she praised God. The hole in the tree was her mouth full of dark emptiness. I saw her as a fake dead "christian". The graveyard were the spiritually dead I was surrounded by. The hand holding open the grave was actually a hand closing the door to a dead world. I was rejected by the only world I knew. The entire scene was in pitch black with only a bright white light surrounding the dark figure and shining light exposing the death around. This last couple of years I named the picture Agony.
YES, we are rejected by the world. So what? We are better off without them.