Loving God and hating evil.

Psalms 97:10
¹⁰ Let those who love the LORD hate evil,
for he guards the lives of his faithful ones
and delivers them from the hand of the wicked. (NIV)

To love someone with all your heart, you must also set yourself against anything that works to destroy them. Nothing can destroy God but when His children are hurt, His heart breaks. Wickedness and evil destroy the children of God.

We might say that what we do doesn’t hurt anyone. If we want to get drunk at home or high by ourselves, who are we hurting? But we do not live life alone. Even if we were stranded on an island, the Lord is there and our self-destruction is anything but love to Him.

Everything we do or don’t will play a role in someone else’s life whether we realize it or not. We have been made in His image and He is a community by nature by Himself as Father, Son, and Spirit. So too, we by nature are a community each affecting the lives of those near us and collectively what is done in one place has an effect on those in another.

As much as we may desire to love the Lord, Scripture reminds us that our flesh desires the things of the flesh. The sinful nature has produced in us a natural posture of acceptance to everything destructive to man. We need the help of the Holy Spirit.

We are not able to hate evil on our own. We can hate the big things such as murder, rape, and the like, but those little thoughts, decisions, and movements that lead up to those are not something we hate. The ‘big’ sins do not happen out of anywhere. First, there are thoughts of selfishness, unforgiveness, and bitterness that no one can even see it. These lead to small almost unnoticeable decisions that build over time leading to those things easy to hate. We can’t just say we are going to hate evil. We need the help of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes gently to us, non-intrusive. He waits for permission. As we submit to the Spirit’s call upon us to do what He asks, He enters more deeply into us. We let the Spirit govern our minds. Loving God and hating evil is not a decision to do these things. It is a decision to submit to the Spirit letting Him guide us. This submission allows the Spirit to transform us in holiness. This results in greater love for God and greater hatred of evil.

Prayer: Lord, first thank you for grace when I embrace what I shouldn’t. Help me embrace your mercy. Help me to love You better. Amen.

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