If you will be the world’s favorite, you must neither be too like God, nor too like the devil. Sir Richard Hill
Here is a sad but very powerful truth that explains a lot in the true believer’s life. A true believer, on the one hand, may be liked in many ways, but s/he will never be the favorite of the world. A true believer may indeed be appreciated in some ways because of being kind to people and helping them, but s/he will never be the favorite of the world. For those who seek to be like God in all ways, the holiness that shines through them in what they do and what they don’t do will anger the world. Jesus told us that the world would hate His followers and John told us in his first letter that it should not surprise us if the world hates us.
John 15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.
1 John 3:13 Do not be surprised, brethren, if the world hates you.
The pride and self-love of the heart makes it hard for man not to seek to be honored and loved by the world, yet Jesus told us quite clearly that we cannot love the world and God at the same time (Mat 6:24). We will love one master at a time and the one we seek to please is our master. We will love the one and hate the other regardless if we think we can do both or not. It is difficult for a person that loves the honor of others to be disliked or mocked by them, but this is what the world does to the children of God who seek to be like Him.
The world loves basic morality and honesty, but only because it can be worked up by the flesh of man and can be thought of as worthy of praise to men. So the world does not like those who are too much like the devil because that treads on their own self-love, sense of safety, and makes them generally uncomfortable. What the world does not like, however, is that fact that all unbelievers are children of the devil. There is enmity between the children of the devil and the children of God, so the good and moral people of the world are at enmity with the true children of God and yet don’t want to be too close to the openly evil.
The world will love those who are not too much like God and yet not too much like the devil. The devil is set on deceiving people into thinking that they are believers, but true believers bother his children and provokes the enmity of their hearts. Men want to go on their easy way of life and not be too much like God and yet be religious and even very religious while they are deceived and on their way to hell. They simply don’t want to be disturbed in that.
That religion (if it must be called) which a man keeps to himself, or which is confined to acts of kindness towards the body, will never cause the least offence; but in proportion as any person is active in furthering the salvation of others, he is sure of making himself obnoxious to the eyes of the world. Sir Richard Hill
Here we see another reason that the deceived religious world hates true believers but has a lot of appreciation for religion that focuses on the outward things and even helping people in outward things. True Christianity knows and actually does deal with the hearts of men. True Christianity knows that men must be born from above or men will perish. True Christianity knows that you can be very moral in the outward sense and all of your morality is actually hatred toward God as it is an attempt to obtain self-righteousness. True Christianity knows that all the acts toward another in terms of their physical wants and “needs” may in fact just be helping that person on to hell.
True Christianity requires speaking to men about their souls and the fact that they are sinners by nature and that the best they can do is still sin. It requires speaking to men of their inability to do one thing to save themselves and that God will only save them by grace alone. When we speak of the cross of Christ and of grace alone, these things also make men obnoxious to worldly people whether they profess Christ or not. Those who are obnoxious to the world and to professing Christianity without true life seem to be rare. The “Christianity” that is taught today for the most part is nothing more than religious and moral worldliness with a few verses sprinkled there and there. What one must have is a people who are earnestly seeking the presence of God and don’t care what the person of the world (whether a professing Christian or not) thinks of that. The Lord Jesus Christ did not care what other thought of Him as He sought the will of the Father. Neither should we as we seek Him by grace alone.
God Loves... Himself 
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