Jesus further explains that the reason why the world hates His followers is because Jesus’ teachings made the world aware of its sin, so now the world has no excuse for continuing to sin. Jesus warns the disciples that the world will hate them because they do not belong to the world but have been chosen out of the world. Jesus knew that this whole experience, and the persecution that the early Church would face, would not be easy for His disciples. No one wants to hear that accepting Christ will bring hardship, but this is just what Jesus is warning the disciples in some of His final teachings before He is about to be betrayed, beaten, falsely tried, and crucified. This is not something the modern evangelical Church has chosen to focus on because it is an unpleasant marketing tool for evangelism. This may seem to be an odd way to start a devotional, but given my experience the past six months, I can say-without a doubt-that it is not easy to be a follower of Christ. It is not easy to be a follower of Christ. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. He will not speak on his own he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.
Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you but if I go, I will send him to you. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me. I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. They will put you out of the synagogue in fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. “All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning. “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father-the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father-he will testify about me. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’ As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin.
Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin but now they have no excuse for their sin. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.