God Is Love and He DOES Hate
YES, God IS love and He DOES hate.
"The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate." (Proverb 8:13)
Both the foolish AND the uninformed proclaim from the hilltops that God does not hate anything.
They are, according to God, incorrect.
God lets us know that when a person stands in awe (fear) of the Lord that person shares HIS hatred of some things.
God hates evil. This means that God hates bad things that hurt people. Anything God says is abomination....hurts people, so He hates that.
God hates pride. Think of the modern day names of parades and special days that celebrate things God hates. How many have the word "Pride" in their titles?
God hates that - because it hurts people.
God hates arrogance. Arrogance reveals a heart pridefully standing in opposition to Him.
An arrogant heart will not learn, therefore it hurts its owner. God hates that.
God hates the evil way or sinful habitual lifestyle. He hates it because it hurts people.
God hates a perverse (or fraudulent) mouth. Our words portray the condition of our hearts.
"Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or else make the tree bad and its fruit bad; for a tree is known by its fruit. Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things." (Matthew 12:33-35)
People who proudly and arrogantly practice things that God calls sin and/or perversion tend to allow perverse words to spew from their mouths. Their words reveal that they are someone God would call a "bad, evil man". They expose themselves.
God hates that.
There are plenty among us today that naively say that God loves everyone and everything.
They believe that it would be impossible for God, who IS love (1 John 4:16), to hate anything.
They think this because they really think that God is just like us.
They think this because as human beings and, therefore, limited beings they cannot comprehend how One can be love and hate
things.
They do not understand that hating hurtful things IS love.
They do not understand that because they do not know God.
It is a harsh reality to know that there ARE things that God, who IS love, hates.
He hates these things (and is against the people who practice them) PRECISELY because He is love.
He hates them because these qualities and practices hurt people and people are about all He really cares about.
Join me in searching our hearts today. Ask the Lord to reveal if there is anything in you or your life that He hates.
Ask Him to reveal if you have evil, pride and arrogance in your heart.
Ask him to reveal any sinful patterns in how you live.
Ask Him to reveal if your words are perverse or fraudulent.
If He reveals it to be so, you know there is something in your life that brings harm to you and to others.
God hates that....but He loves YOU.
“…God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)
The Good News is that in Christ (and ONLY in Christ) we can be cleansed of all these things and new, healthy patterns can he established in our hearts.
When we are born again we learn to love what God loves and hate what God hates and, so....we stop living lives characterized by things He calls sin...or perverse.
God IS love and His love is aimed at people. He loves us so much that He has told us simply and plainly what He hates and why.
Let's resolve to cling to Him today and abandon anything that would harm us or others.
In Him this is written.
Pastor Mike McInerney
Mike McInerney Ministries, Inc.
Decatur, Texas
© June 8, 2016
(for use with permission)