{"id":7460,"date":"2022-07-17T01:47:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-17T01:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7460"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:33:50","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:33:50","slug":"a-badge-of-discipleship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=7460","title":{"rendered":"A BADGE OF DISCIPLESHIP?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a sermon entitled &#8220;Upon our Lord&#8217;s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Third&#8221;, John Wesley has this to say about Christians and persecution:<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The persecution which attends all the children of God is that our Lord describes in the following words: &#8216;Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.&#8217; This cannot fail: it is the very badge of our discipleship; it is one of the seals of our calling. It is a sure portion entailed on all the children of God; if we have it not we are bastards and not sons.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This is strong language:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>Persecution is &#8220;the very badge&#8221; of true discipleship.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n\n<li>If in living out our faith we are never persecuted, we are &#8220;bastards&#8221; rather than true children of God.<\/li>\n\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Does this rhetoric make us uncomfortable because it is over the top?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Or does it make us uncomfortable because it rings true?<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.&#8221; &#8211; Jesus in John 15:19<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Have you ever been hated by the world for your faith in Christ?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a sermon entitled &#8220;Upon our Lord&#8217;s Sermon on the Mount, Discourse the Third&#8221;, John Wesley has this to say about Christians and persecution: &#8220;The persecution which attends all the children of God is that our Lord describes in the following words: &#8216;Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7461,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7460\/revisions\/7461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}