May 15, 2019 – Click here to listen
I’ve been in Islamorada in the Florida Keys for two weeks and will remain for another four weeks. I’ve been fishing nearly every day, relaxing, and resting my soul and it has been good for me. Yesterday I decided to take a couple of days off fishing and my wife and I decided on the spur of the moment to drive down to Key West which is about a 3-hour drive.
Walking down Duval street was akin to walking down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It smelled bad, there were drunks, crackheads, sleazy looking strippers, homosexuals, and street hustlers pretty much everywhere and the tourists were drinking it up like pigs eating slop.
I thought about how my life has dramatically changed. There was a time when I was right there among them and just as miserable. We passed one skinny little kid about 18 years old asleep in a brick planter with his backpack as a pillow, not the most comfortable bed I’ve ever seen. I initially thought how God must be repulsed by these derelicts and then I was reminded of His unconditional love for all of us. Make no mistake He is repulsed by their behavior, but He loves each and every one of them and desires that all come to Him. This according to the Bible.
Oddly the world hates God and it hates those who love Him.
Why?
Jesus answered this for us in John 15, stating that it is because we are not of the world. If we were of the world, the world would love its own. He also said the world hated Him before it hated us and since He chose us out of the world it hates us too. I can attest that street people intensely dislike Christians. They want to live their sinful lifestyle and not be preached to and reminded how destructive it is.
This is not restricted to street people and all statistics confirm that Christians are by far the most persecuted of any people group in the world. Christians should expect persecution and anyone who follows Christ should expect some trouble because of loving Christ. Jesus said in 15:23 He who hates me hates my Father also. God haters for sure, but without cause. Seriously why do people hate God? He is good, He loves us, He wants to help us. If He was secular, He would be given every award devised by humankind.
God and His church are persecuted because He wants to turn our sorrow to joy. What a paradox. I’m glad I found the way off those streets of misery. My life was transformed, and I got off those stinking streets forever. I was talking to a fishing buddy down here the other day and shared my testimony in detail with him. He looked at me and smiled and said, “And now you’re down here fishing!”
Yeah . . .
That kind of says it all.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.