Rewriting Your Mission Statement

“When the world hates you, remember it hated me first” (John 15:18).

Instead of reading that in the larger context of Jesus encouraging the hearts of his friends, some people seem to have made that verse a mission statement for their lives. There’s no way to please everyone, and you shouldn’t compromise your identity or resources trying. But before blaming your negative state on how you’ve been treated, look at your own internal mission statement.

“For as he thinks within himself, so is he” (Prov. 23:7).

Largely, you become what you believe. If you expect the world to reject, mistreat, and even hate you, that’s what you’re projecting at everyone you meet, and it’s who you’re becoming inside. But if you’ll let God heal and transform the sources of those negative thoughts in you, he will empower you to fully live in his grace, love, joy, peace, hope, kindness, and generosity, a life–giving atmosphere you carry with you no matter what’s going on around you.

Write a new mission statement with God, an internal vision of who he is for you, who you’re becoming in him, and all he says is possible around you. Not everyone will receive it, and some may still despise you for it, because of their own dark inner beliefs. But that won’t crush you anymore, because your love for them doesn’t depend on what they think of you, but on who God is for you.