1 John 4:20-21 If anyone boasts, "I love God," and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won't love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can't see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You've got to love both.
Hate - feel intense or passionate dislike, loathe, detest, despise, dislike, abhor, intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury
OUCH!!!! Yes this one hurts. We humans get so wrapped up in our emotions that we let them get the best of us, which brings out the worst in us. Hate seems like such a strong word, yet it is an emotion, a verb, that rules some of our lives. We hate the guy who just cut us off in traffic. We hate our ex spouse who is doing better than we are. We hate our neighbor who just got the promotion we wanted. We hate the cop who busted us for speeding. I could go on and on with examples of hate coming from people who say "I love God".
Hate crimes are on the rise. People are beat up for having beliefs that are different than ours. People are murdered for being different. People are bullied for not "fitting in" with societies standard of normal. Are you kidding me? I'm sorry but this sounds like a radical extremist group instead of a group of so called Christians
Strong words? Yes! How many divorces end with one spouse hating the other? How many families have been divided by sheer hatred and jealousy? How many fists have been raised in anger and hatred? How many children spout off that they hate their parents? "I hate" is something that we should never, ever say IF we proclaim to love God and truly do love Him.
As true believers and as someone who loves God, the word hate should never cross my lips. As Christians, as believers we are called to love God and love all people, not just those who love us. Yes it can be painful but we are called to love our enemy! Those we may feel we hate and despise the most, we are told to love and pray for them.
Matthew 5:44-4 I'm challenging that. I'm telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best--the sun to warm and the rain to nourish--to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty.
The reason behind this "love your enemy" command is because, well to be honest it is easy and simple to love those who love us. Even the worst of the worst evil doers can do that. So why should we just settle to love those who love us? We need to get off our high horse and step into the horse poo. (Sorry) If we don't than we need to ask ourselves an honest series of questions;
Do we really love God?
Do we really believe in Jesus Christ?
Do we truly want to be living examples of Jesus Christ on this earth?
Are we true disciples of Christ?
Do we love the way God loves us?
Let me be brutally honest with myself and you. God has the right to hate each one of us for the things we have done or not done, said or not said. He has the right to hate us for us continually turning our backs on Him. He has the right to hate us for the sins we have committed. Yet He doesn't! He forgives us! He loves us! He accepts us!
We are not better than God by any means and we have no right to hate any person! No matter how evil or how much they have sinned or hurt us. We must do as God tells us and love our enemies because He loved us when we were still His enemies. He loves us even though we don't deserve it. So lets rid ourselves of this word, hate! Let's remove it from our vocabulary totally and forever.
Lord, please forgive me for the times I have hated. Fill me with your love and grace so that I may learn to be more like you and love my enemies and pray for them. Help me to be a true example of your love here on this earth. Help me to truly know what it means to love you fully and completely, in Jesus name I pray, amen!
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