Lent Devotional Day 35

Day 35
Tuesday, March 28

John 15:18-27
18 “If the world hates you, know that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. However, I have chosen you out of the world, and you don’t belong to the world. This is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you, ‘Servants aren’t greater than their master.’ If the world harassed me, it will harass you too. If it kept my word, it will also keep yours. 21 The world will do all these things to you on account of my name, because it doesn’t know the one who sent me.

22 “If I hadn’t come and spoken to the people of this world, they wouldn’t be sinners. But now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me also hates the Father. 24 If I hadn’t done works among them that no one else had done, they wouldn’t be sinners. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 This fulfills the word written in their Law, They hated me without a reason.[a]

26 “When the Companion[b] comes, whom I will send from the Father—the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me. 27 You will testify too, because you have been with me from the beginning.”

Reflection
Jesus calls us to be set apart from the world, just as He was. The world hated Him because He was set apart. He loved unfailingly, forgave unconditionally and served and praised God in every situation, without fail. Jesus calls us to be like Him. The world calls us to be like it. But how does living fully for Jesus look? How do you live fully for Jesus when you’re being pulled towards the world every day? I think living fully for Jesus doesn’t mean perfection but it means that even when you fall short, looking to God first instead of the world. No matter how many times you mess up, because we all do, knowing that Jesus wants us to lean on Him and look to Him for direction and purpose.

Jesus never asked us to be perfect but instead He promises us a helper in the face of persecution, the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of Truth. He will testify of Jesus and encourage us in the face of trials because we are called to be set apart. Jesus chose us out of the world to live radically for Him and to do things as He would but He promised to never leave us to figure that out on our own, but to always have the Spirit of Truth to guide our paths.

By Kelsea Hansard