Hatred is easy

Hating is the easy way to live. It comes in many degrees, mere dislike, disdain, outright contempt, animosity, and murder! Hatred, in its various degrees, allows me to distance myself from you, to be who I want to be without regard for how it might affect you. Hatred is much more common than we think. It’s not only bombers and serial killers that show hatred. Parents who go on their way ignoring their children are haters. Husbands who refuse to engage their wives at their deepest emotional needs are haters. Those who have and choose not to see those who are without, are haters!
The Holy Spirit smacked me with real guilt recently by revealing to me that I was hating another person. I refused to believe it, at first. How could I hate anyone? I am a Christian, devoted to love. After all, I wasn’t doing anything! How could that be hatred? And it was my ‘nothing,’ that the Spirit pressed on my conscience. It was hard to acknowledge that my passivity in the relationship was a form of hatred. Love is always active. There are only two ways to live; in love, which requires working for the good and benefit of another, or hatred which can be expressed by the simple act of turning away from someone to preserve our own comfort.

Love is costly! It won’t let us walk away from that person who is hurting. It won’t let us build walls to protect our hearts from hurt. Love requires that we share our resources. It makes us move out of our revered and treasured privacy to be involved with people. Love makes us care – for the least, the lonely, the lost! Far from being merely sentimental, love is a muscular, robust choice demanding much of us. This is the kind of love which Jesus Christ said sums up “all the Law” of God. It is the very thing that marks us as His followers, for it absolutely requires a transformation of spirit, a conversion. Apart from the love of God and the life of the Spirit in us, we cannot love as He demands. Nice is not enough.

Jesus, in the 25th chapter of Matthew, says that our love will cause us to feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, be hospitable to the homeless, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and take up the cause of those who are imprisoned! Nobody is marginalized by lovers.

Here is what the Word says about it. "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. … If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. … We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." (1 John 4:7-8, 15-16, 19-20, NIV)
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Father, Your love for me is compelling and costly.
It brought Your Son, Jesus Christ, to my side.
It made the Lord of Glory, my Advocate in Your holy Presence.
I bow my head in humble joy at the thought.

Spirit of God, convict me of hatred;
compel me to love.
Change my heart, break it even, so that
I cannot live self-righteously, selfishly, or absorbed in my own interests.
Lord, let me live in love,
Pleasing You, lifting up others, leading them to know and love You.
In Your amazing Name, I ask these things. Amen

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Love divine, all love excelling,
Joy of heav'n, to earth come down!
Fix in us Thy humble dwelling;
All Thy faithful mercies crown.
Jesus, Thou art all compassion;
Pure, unbounded love Thou art.
Visit us with Thy salvation;
Enter ev'ry trembling heart.

Finish then Thy new creation;
Pure and spotless let us be.
Let us see Thy great salvation,
Perfectly restored in Thee:
Changed from glory into glory,
'Till in heaven we take our place,
'Till we cast our crowns before Thee,
Lost in wonder, love, and praise.

Love Divine
Wesley, Charles / Zundel, John
© Public Domain