{"id":4717,"date":"2013-11-09T00:41:34","date_gmt":"2013-11-09T08:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=4717"},"modified":"2013-11-09T00:41:39","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T08:41:39","slug":"rose-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2013\/11\/09\/rose-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"Rose Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIf the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world\u2014therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, \u2018Servants are not greater than their master.\u2019 If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, \u2018They hated me without a cause.\u2019\u201d (John 15:18-25)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\tJesus actually did promise us a rose garden. But we need to remember, roses have thorns, and they need pruning, and watering, and fertilizing. And they go dormant in the winter. And the blossoms wilt and die eventually. <\/p>\n

\tWe\u2019d like to believe that Jesus has promised us a life of ease and physical prosperity, because ease and physical prosperity is what most of us want. But Jesus promised thorns along with the rich blessings. Jesus wanted us to be just as happy as he was. He was happy, even though all his life he knew he\u2019d someday die\u2014just as all of us know a similar fate. Jesus experienced a violent and painful death upon a Roman cross. Jesus promised his disciples that the world would treat them no better than it had treated him. <\/p>\n

\tDoes this mean that if you\u2019re happy and prosperous that somehow you\u2019ve been disobedient? No more than being miserable and suffering demonstrates a sinful condition. Rather, Jesus simply promises that life happens and that we have no guarantees of anything beyond what Jesus endured. He had a happy life, and he endured the cross because in doing so, he saved the world. And his death was only temporary, anyhow, just like our own suffering and death. It really is all good. We can see that if we can gain the same perspective on life that Jesus had.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4717"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4718,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4717\/revisions\/4718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}