I Didn’t Promise You A Rose Garden

Who remembers this song?

Life is not fair and it life is not easy but life is good. God gave to each of us life, love, mercy and forgiveness. For too long we have lived with a myth, that once you receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior life will get easier. It is a better life but He tells us that the world will hate us. We are not hated because of ourselves but because Jesus is in us.

John 15:18-27 (NKJV) The World’s Hatred

¹⁸ “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ²¹ But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ He who hates Me hates My Father also. ²⁴ If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. ²⁵ But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’^[a]

The Coming Rejection

²⁶ “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. ²⁷ And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

Footnotes:

1. John 15:25 Psalm 69:4

New King James Version (NKJV) Jesus did not promise us a rose garden but He did go to prepare a place for us, and He did promise to come back for us.

Here are some promises God has made to us

Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Romans 8: 38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

1 John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Isaiah 41:10 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

There are so many more promises God has given to us. He is faithful and true.