Being a person who is willing to be persecuted because of righteousness is a person who can take the heat. Since righteousness is doing good to yourself, others, and God and not doing bad things to yourself and others, if someone mistreats you for doing righteousness, then they are wrong and you are right. Jesus wants you to know this important principle; it is a simple thing to see that you are going to need to be able to stick with being righteous even if people give you a hard time about it.

If you are fickle, when you are resisted by someone concerning your right way of life, they would succeed in driving you back to your old way of life. It won’t do you any good, if you only live a successful life for as long as you don’t get any criticizm, resistance, or persecution for it. But if you rejoice and are glad that you are doing the right things and are being persecuted for them, then you will not only START winning, you will KEEP winning.

You can have a great fear of what people might be able to do to you, if you don’t yield to their demands. They might be able to take your job, your money, your reputation, your friends, your possessions, or your wellbeing away from you. You being a Christian and living and teaching a righteous life can make some people mad. Mark 16:15 (NIV) He (Jesus) said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.” Teaching Jesus’ principles everywhere you go will create resistance. But, it will make you pleasing in God’s sight.

You are currently on the right track for being set free from the issues you are having with fear. You might expect all your friends and associates to be glad for you and give you their support. However, Christianity, Jesus, and righteousness are different from all other religions, programs, and systems. You can embrace any religion in the world and you will be accepted, except Christianity. There are people who are hostile to the truth because they want to continue to do wrong, bad, and damaging things to themselves and others.

There are people who don’t want you to be healed; there are those who don’t want you to succeed. If your situation makes them feel superior to you, then they will try to keep you down. If they like you the way you are, they will try to keep you where you are. If your problems give you and them something in common, then they will fight any changes you try to make.

There are those who hate righteousness; they will accuse you of thinking you are better than them. There are people who like sinning; and, when you refuse to join them, they will be greatly offended. There are those who enjoy pulling people down and keeping them down. You have to want to be set free from your problems with fear more than you want to please people. You have to want it more than you want to get along with your friends. It has to be one of the main priorities of you life.

You had to let God empower you to decide it was wrong to treat people bad and it was wrong to neglect doing the right things to them. You had to ask God to help you see things from His perspective; and, that has pointed out flaws in your behavior. You had to get God’s power to help you be willing to see your faults and be willing to make changes in the way you live; not everyone is willing to pray for these things.

When you prayed and God helped you decide to embrace righteousness, it made you very different from a lot of people. Are you willing to yield to God’s power to resist and work around the wrong, bad, and evil people in the crowd so you can help the good people in the crowd? Are you willing to allow God to empower you to stay on track no matter how unpopular your Biblical principles may be to those who don’t want to change? If so, pray the above Psalm 27:3 prayer.

John 16:8 (NIV) When He (the Holy Spirit) comes, He will convict the world of GUILT in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. Every adult has a conscience; and, the Holy Spirit speaks to every conscience. He takes the Old Testament laws of God and puts them in everyone’s conscience. But, the type one people yield to the Holy Spirit’s conviction and the type two people resist it. Those who yield try to be good people; those who resist will forgive themselves, justify their wrong, bad, and evil, and will get friends to tell them that it wasn’t their fault.

The people who persecute you are people who are resisting the conviction of the Holy Spirit. These people fall into three different categories:

• WRONG: There are people who would like to yield to the Holy Spirit’s conviction in their conscience but they don’t know how to get Jesus’ help; these are people who do wrong. When you tell them the good news from Jesus, they accept Him and are born again.


• BAD: There are people who know about Jesus and His salvation; but, they are still desiring to live in sin. They don’t want to go very deep into sin; they just want to enjoy the pleasures of sin for awhile. These are people who know you are telling them the truth; they just don’t accept your message and repent of their sins.


• EVIL: Then there are those who have made a final decision. They are evil people who will do everything in their power to stop you from helping people accept Jesus as their Lord, Savior, and King.

When some people find the right path, they lock in on it and give it all they have. Others know where the right path is; but, they reject it anyway. Some allow others to make their decisions for them because they are people pleasers. It is your life; it is your heart that is suffering; and, it is your decision to make. Persecution, criticism, popular opinion, social pressure, and opposing views can cheat you out of your healing and victories; but, it remains your decision to make.

If you pray, you can dig in with God and find a life that is powerful, successful, and victorious. If you will decide you want this ONE THING more than you want anything else, you will find a life of great freedom and happiness. God will set you free from the control of difficulties with fear, the control of people, the control of social pressure and public opinion, and He will set you free from powerlessness.

Opposition, problems, trouble, and challenges can be more than you can bare at times. But, just because you have found yourself being barely able to make it doesn’t mean that is the way it has to be. Things don’t have to always go smoothly for you to be successful at life. Jesus wants to empower you with a power-relationship that is able to give you the victory over anything that comes your way. It is a matter of you praying and asking Him to empower you to only think about Him and His provisions.

Ask Jesus in the day of trouble, to keep you safe in His dwelling place, ask Him to hide you in the shelter of His tabernacle, and set you high upon a rock. Then your head will be exalted above the enemies or problems that surround you; at His tabernacle you will be able to pray with shouts of joy; you will sing and make music to the LORD.”

You may have done some things that were really bad; you may look at yourself as being a person who doesn’t deserve to be helped and healed. Or, you may be a person who feels like you deserve only the very best of everything. Whether you have great confidence or no confidence at all, the truth of the matter is, you need grace and mercy. You can’t earn God’s gifts, buy them, steal them, trade for them, or do something to deserve them. Persecution can so tear down your confidence and esteem where you don’t feel WORTHY of God and His things. But, your relationship with God has NOTHING to do with deserving.

The things Jesus wants to do in your life, you will never be able to deserve. Sooner or later you will need more help and more miracles than you can expect of God. Sooner or later your self-esteem will let you down and you will have to accept the fact that you deserve to be held accountable for some bad things you have done.