January 31, 2022 - John 15:18

“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.” John 15:18 NLT

Jesus, thank you that you understand anything we face. You were falsely attacked. People hated you for no reason. You literally died to pay the price of the whole world’s sins even though you were sinless. Thank you for your love for us. We are so grateful for all you endured because of your love for us.

Lord, please help us learn to be so secure in you that the opinions of others don’t faze us. Teach us to take the hurtful comments or actions to you and align them with your truth. If they don’t line up with what you are saying about us, then we want to throw them out. Lord, if we are corrected in a hurtful way, help us learn to decipher any truth within the correction. Even if 98% is not true, we want to address and correct the 2%. Allow us to walk humbly and give us the strength to own up to our shortcomings and ask forgiveness. We want to walk humbly in love more than we want to be right.

Lord, we want to live our lives in a way that exhibits your love and draws others closer to you. We want to live in unity with those around us but not at the expense of righteousness. Lord, if standing up for you causes people to hate us, help us be ok with this. We want to please you more than we want to be liked. Lord, help us recognize that some people in their current state, will never like us. This is because the demons influencing them hate your Spirit in us. Until that influence is broken off their life, they will always hate us. Show us how to pray and any actions that we are to take to break the demonic influence over their lives. Show us how to keep our armor on, our shield up, and fight with the sword of your word to defeat the enemy. Give us your strength to face whatever is coming our way, discernment to recognize what we are really facing, and the wisdom to know what we need to do to win the battle.

In Jesus name, amen.