Wednesday July 27, 2011
It would seem that the title of this jlog is contrary to the very nature of who God is. God is love and God loves everyone. The most quoted verse in John 3:16 says that God loves the whole world. When Jesus was asked the question of the greatest commandments, He responded by saying to love God and to love others as we loved ourselves. He tells us that to be disciples we need to love one another. So how does this fit into the concept of a loving God hating something?
In Proverbs, Solomon made the statement that the Lord hates seven things when he said, “There are six things the lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community. (Proverbs 6:16-19 NIV). When you look at these seven things that God hates, He never says that He hates a person, but He does hate destructive actions such as arrogant, prideful individuals that look down on others. He hates the actions of people who lye. Hands that kill others who are innocent. He hates people who are scheming to do something wicked to others. He hates people who seek to make trouble in the community.
God loves us, but He hates our sin. He separates what we do from who we are. He wants us to have the same perspective in loving one another but hating the negative, destructive things that others do. Our self worth would be tremendously enhanced if we were to grab ahold of this concept. God always loves us and His value never changes as He looks at us. But He doesn’t necessarily like everything we do and challenges us to cut away the things He hates about our actions. He keeps what we do separate from who we are and He wants us to keep those separate as well. He wants us to love ourselves, but not love the negative things we do.
On this journey we sometimes need to cut away those things that are displeasing to the Lord so that we can be freed up to walk with Him.
relationallychallenged 