“If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you…If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.” John 15:18-20
I have a friend who’s a “bad girl.” Maybe you’re thinking she’s mean, nasty, proud, harsh, hard, she curses and drinks and smokes and spits and hurts people and tramples all over them and runs from man to man and oh, well, etc. If you’re thinking anything like this, you’re way off. My friend is one of the sweetest, gentlest, kindest, most loving, and giving women I have known. She loves the Lord to no end, she is devoted beyond measure to Him and to His Word, and she lives a purer life with a purer heart than many could imagine. But she’s considered a “bad girl.” Why? This is why.
My friend loves the Lord so much, and so desires to live her life in love for and obedience to Him, that she faithfully does her best to live by His Word and to help others to do the same. Rather than try to hold onto people she loves for her own sake, she tries to hold onto the Lord for His sake. In other words, she would rather speak His Truth in love to someone than to hold it back from that person, even at the expense of that person’s hatred and rejection. See, she loves the Lord more than anything or anyone and knows she will spend forever with Him. She knows one day she will stand before Him and have to give an account of her life on earth. And that she is responsible for all she does and says here. She is ridiculed and ostracized, even by loved ones at times, for standing up for Him and for what is right in His eyes. He is her first love. Greatest love. Forever love.
While so many people, even those professing to believe in Christ as Lord, work hard to justify what is ungodly, impure, irreverent, and dishonoring to God, whether it be particular music, concerts, books, movies, magazines, types of dress, certain unwholesome words, etc., my friend will meekly, shyly, quietly, lovingly speak up for God and try to help someone learn to live to love and please Him. One time she did that with me, I was offended. But God convicted me of my sin through her, led me to repentance, and helped me see I need to be thankful in this day and age of rampant ungodliness to have a faithful friend like I have. A friend whose faithfulness is to the Lord first and foremost, and whose faithfulness to people is in the context of the Lord Jesus Christ.
My friend is a “bad girl” in the world’s eyes because she goes against its ways and stands up for Christ. I am often considered the same because my first love, too, is the Lord, and because I desire, too, to live to please Him and help others do the same. For those willing to stand up for God and His Word, the rejection and ridicule we face is nothing compared with the joy of being in forever fellowship with Christ and in living for Him forever!