If you're a Christian, it should come as no surprise for you to have enemies, the senior pastor of Mecklenburg Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina says.
In his article on Crosswalk.com, Dr James Emery White said that the challenge for Christians does not lie in having enemies but having the right ones.
He thinks one of the biggest enemies of modern Christians is culture, which has popularised the notion that Christianity is about affirmation and not opposition.
"For many, there is such a bitter taste in their mouth from the caustic and abrasive era of the 'Moral Majority' and religious 'right.' So much so that they have over-compensated by not wanting to be seen as condemning anything," he said.
He continued that spiritual insecurity has also hampered the Christian concept of legitimacy and given rise to dependence on popularity.
"Somehow they are not 'legitimate' until they land on Oprah, are covered by USA Today, or are fawned over by Slate," he said.
"Jesus made it very clear that He did not come to bring peace but a sword. Little wonder His own life did not end in a crowning but a crucifying," he explained, calling attention to the path that Jesus himself took, where he battled against the enemies of truth, stood up for his beliefs and held fast to his convictions.
This, he said, was what Dietrich Bonhoeffer also did during the time of the Nazis, when he tried to act against evil.
"Someone who clearly saw the lines of good and evil, and worked tirelessly to overthrow evil (in his case, Hitler and the Third Reich). Rather than popularity, for Bonhoefffer, it ended in execution at a concentration camp," he said.
The pastor said it was high time for Christians to re-evaluate their views and instead be counter-cultural, and follow the path that Jesus did.
"So don't worry about having enemies. Instead, concern yourself with having the right ones – and for the right reasons," he said.
