This has caused me much grief and I pray for their eyes and ears to be open and the grace for me to trust God for whatever His will.
Hello Iq
I am new to this and this is my first comment send to this forum! I have just been exposed to Mr. Smith's teaching, and I am reading them again and again simply because in him, I have find someone who seem to be "preaching" the very same gospel that I have been preaching for years.
This "preaching" has caused me grief with my friends and family calling me crazy, demon-possessed, member of a cult, etc. These are painful statements to hear from someone concerning anybody, especially when you are convinced that this which you are preaching is, the TRUTH! At some stage I actually stopped saying anything to anyone concerning any of these things because I was just tired of being ridiculed and mocked and laught at! (I am crying even as I write this, for the pain is still as real to me now as it was then)!
But I have learnt, by the grace of God, that all this,
1. I should expect and
2. I should consider it pure joy!
Blessed are you when you are persecuted, mocked and ridiculed for the sake of our Lord and his message! He did not bring peace but a sword into this world, where the enemies of a man will be the members of his own family. Rejoice and be glad for as they treated Him, so are they treating you. As they treated the prophets before you, so are they treating you!
This is what I have learnt and I thank God I live by that NOW. Be not fooled into thinking I mean it's now easy. NO, it's not. The cross is not to be ENJOYED but to be ENDURED!
Hebrews 12: 1 -3 (NIV) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.