God hates whatever harms us . . .

 

After much thought and reading Scripture, I’m fully convinced that the same God who pours His love into us that we might love what He loves, also gives us His strong aversion to the things that He hates. Otherwise, we could not love our enemies nor could we hate those sins that make us feel good.

God’s Word tells me what to love and not love. One example:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. (1 John 2:15)

By this I know that when “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life” pop up in my heart, I’m not walking in the Spirit and need to confess my sin and rely on Jesus as my advocate. The Holy Spirit motivates me to the only cure for sin:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Worldly sins are often subtle. Consider the ambition of those who said, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” But Jesus replied, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:22–23) They sinned by thinking what they did in Jesus’ name was their righteousness, but they did not have a relationship with Him so their ‘good deeds’ were from a sinful self-righteousness, the pride of life.

While the NT says almost nothing concerning God’s hatred, it is filled with instruction for what I must not do. He gives those commands because He knows the harm that sin does. He loves me, does not want me to experience that harm. In other words, His hatred of sin is motivated by His great love.

That does not mean He protects us from suffering. At times, that happens, but only because the love of God uses suffering to perfect our lives. When I doubt that is true (and my flesh wants comfort), I need to remember that He used suffering to perfect His Son . . . .

But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. (Hebrews 2:9-10)

Suffering is not to be hated — if God allows it, He is using it . . .

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure . . . . For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps . . . . (1 Peter 2:19-23)

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit . . . . And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. (1 Peter 3:18; 5:10)

God hates sin for what it does to His beloved and to all those created in His image. Sin mars that image, subtle or otherwise, and it will destroy us unless we are saved by the power of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

Once Christ comes in, salvation is secured, but Satan still tries to get God’s people to sin, even by trying to add something we do to secure what we already have. To this, God says:

Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? . . . . Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” . . . . Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” so that in Christ Jesus  . . . we receive the promised Spirit through faith. (Galatians 3:2–14)

PRAY: Jesus, because of You, I hate sin and how it muddies my relationship with You. Thank You for saving me from sin’s penalty and working in me to overcome it — a lifelong battle that will end that day when I stand before You, made perfect by Your saving power.

PONDER: The love of God that hates sin and what it does, thinking of the wonder that He came here to die and set us free from sin’s destructive power.

 

 

Love rejects lies . . .

It’s interesting that the OT speaks of the things God hates, but the NT mentions this word only once to describe what God hates. It is in a verse that mentions the deeds of a false group or sect but with no other explanation (see Revelation 2:6).

Instead the NT uses ‘hate’ to describe the attitude of some have toward Christ and His people: “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” (Luke 21:17) It also describes the attitude we can have if God is not put first in our lives, and even if He is put first.

No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” (Luke 16:13)

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

Without using that word, today’s reading implies that God hates worldliness and points to this passage:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. (1 John 2:15–17)

This does not say God hates the world, but that we are not supposed to love it. The Greek words used in these verses and in the well-known verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16) are the same words: agape (love) and cosmos (world).

In the longer passage, the problem is not the world but the sinful cravings common to the world, and that we are not to ‘love’ this in the same way that God loved the world and gave Himself for it. Instead, we are to give ourselves and that love to the people of the world, recognizing the difference between the love of God (humble, obedient, sacrificial) and the love popularized in the world (proud, do my own thing, me first).

That false love is not from God, will not last, and has nothing to do with the life of Christ that is in me. These verses do not say that God hates anything, but is a warning to distinguish what I am to ‘love’ and give my life toward. He died to set me free from living from worldly desires, a Greek word for “evil cravings” — and as one in whom Christ lives, that desire is changed so that I want to love what God loves. I just need to recognize what that is!

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son. (Colossians 1:13)

The lies that can lead me astray come from Satan, the father of lies and the one who opposes all that is of God. He wants to destroy my faith and lead me away into worldly cravings, but God says, “Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

PRAY: This devotional ends with, “Praise God that someday Satan and his evil system will be vanquished.” In You, Jesus, this has already happened. Even though the Bible warns that “In later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons” (1 Timothy 4:1) it also says, “Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.” (1 Corinthians 2:12) My focus is on You, not on what You hate but on what You love. I don’t want to be a Christian who rants about all the evil in the world — Satan does not deserve any free publicity. Instead, I want to honor You by loving You with all my heart and giving my life to love that which You love.

PONDER: I don’t need to study the lies and the negatives to be able to quickly spot and avoid them. Instead, I need to know the truth so well that all that is evil stands out in sharp contrast to the goodness of Jesus Christ.