John tells us, “Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you” (1 John 3:13). Those words unsettle us because most of us long to be liked, understood, and welcomed.
Yet Scripture is honest: following Jesus will sometimes place you at odds with the values and systems of this world.
In John 7:7, Jesus explains why: “The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.”
The root issue is not mainly you, but Christ in you and His truthful witness to what is good and what is evil. Hate, in this sense, is a world thing—a symptom of a fallen world resisting the light of Christ.