Hating Christians...

So why DO some people hate Christians?? Or despise them??
I'm not talking about "hate for a reason."  There are lots of reasons to dislike any religious bigot, or to hold them in contempt, and people who use religion to harm others--these are worthy of our strongest condemnations.
However, there is a group of people who seem completely opposed to the things that Jesus taught, to His claims about Himself, and to those who follow Him for no real reason at all.  They simply don't like Christians, and they don't like Christianity.
Why?
Jesus gives ONE reason for this attitude in His own words:
In His prayer for His disciples in John 17, He says to the Father, "I have given them [the disciples] your [the Father's] word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."
In other words, what Jesus taught bothers certain people.  They can't stand it. And they can't stand the people who have the temerity to believe that Jesus taught the truth, and those who accept His words as true.  Jesus also said, "if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you."
But why is that??  How can it be that the Man whom millions revere as a great teacher, whom hundreds of millions worship, is so hated and despised by some?  Why are His disciples subjected to such awful treatment? Remember now that I'm not discussing the bigots, the "killers in the name of religion," etc.--just the regular folks, who worship the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.
I think the reason is actually quite simple.  Jesus explained it to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, on the day of His Crucifixion:
"To this end I was born, and for this cause I came into the world, that I should bear witness to the Truth.  Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice."
It cannot be coincidence that at the very moment He said this, His enemies among the Jews had set Him up to die that day, murdered at the behest of a kangaroo court.
Truth is the great divider.  People who fight the truth and try to kill its representatives, especially the truth of God and His Son Jesus Christ, do so for one reason only--they are not "of the truth."  They reject it, even though in many cases they know in their hearts that it is true.
The best example of this in the Bible is in John's Gospel, where the Pharisees, Scribes (lawyers), and Sadducees are confronted with the amazing miracle of the resurrection of Lazarus (John 11).
Their response?
"What are we going to do, for this man does many miracles...If we leave Him alone, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."
That is perhaps one of the most stunning admissions of guilt in the course of history.
What they are saying is, "We know, but we don't care.  We want our lies over the truth He teaches and the miracles He does.  Let's kill him!!"
This is how some act when they are confronted with the truth.
How do you respond when you are confronted with truth you don't like?
Do you try to ignore it? Deny it?  Do you try to kill the messenger?  What DO you do?
You can do any of the above, and earn the judgment of God against yourself--or you can consider it, and see if it's worth believing, and then decide.
I hope you do the latter, since your response will determine your destiny.

Fruit...

Jesus said this:
I am the Vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in Him, brings forth much fruit, for without Me, you can do nothing (No Thing...Not Even One Thing...).
Earlier, Jesus had said, "I am the true Vine, and my Father is the Vinedresser..."
Jesus' point is this: the branches of a vine have a "derived life,"  a life communicated by the vine. Cut them off from the vine, lay them aside, and they wither and die.  So it is with us.  Our life is not only from Him, as an independent thing, it is from Him, in that it streams continuously from Him.
He says, "The Son has life in Himself." What He means is that, like the vine, he is the continuous source of life and spiritual health.  And just as fruit is the product of a healthy vine with healthy branches, so spiritual fruit is the product of our connection with Him.  If we are taken from Him, we die.  Which is why it is so wonderful that HE has said, "He who comes to Me, I will never cast out." Almost everyone who's reading this blog does so via an internet connection.  The life we derive from Jesus Christ is very much like streaming video.  If the connection is broken, the video stops, and we have no way of seeing it until the connection is re-established.  However, the connection with Him is "always on," if we let it be so.  We CAN cut it off, just as you can choose to stop watching YouTube and go on a walk, but with Him, there's no "broken connection" necessary.  We are a "hotspot" that can always communicate with the Son and the Father--and that connection is what brings fruit--the fact that we are tied to Him, and "always on."
This is an amazing truth--for no man, angel, demon, or circumstance can break that connection. Romans 8 says that "no created thing" shall be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, and it's completely true.  Not one entity or thing in the universe can separate us from Him once we have established a connection with Him.  Since He lives "by the power of an endless life (or "indestructible life")",  we cannot lose our lives with and in Him by any means.  He is never "off" (back to the internet metaphor), He is always "on," with never a power outage, a denial of service attack, or a breakdown in software or hardware.  NOTHING can stop the power of His life in us, unless we reject it.