A Time To #26

Love And Hate

There are no two words that contrast each other more than Love and Hate.  They oppose each other in thinking, feeling and action and work to shape our perspective on everything we experience in life.  Today, we look at when it is appropriate to express these powerful emotions and what results from their expression.

When to Love

The term love here means to desire or breathe after.  This intimates both want and need. Our desires are those things which we want in life.  They are the things that possess our hearts and minds.  When we want something badly enough, we will move heaven and earth to achieve it.  Likewise, we will pursue our needs with great fervor as well.  Too breathe is a basic need of all people.  The things we love fulfill our needs in life.  Like our desires, we are going to chase after our needs with fervor and persistence.

So the season for Love is a season of pursuit.  When we God puts something before us to pursue, our love for Him should transfer to that pursuit.  Just as passionately and needfully as we pursue Him, we should pursue those things He has laid before us.  Our ministry and calling, a person to evangelize, a help to get involved with.  All of these things are good for pursuing and fulfill us both as wants and needs when we are walking with God. 

Keeping our hearts open to the pursuits God has for us is key. It's easy to say we love God, but when opportunities to serve Him fall in front of us, do we open ourselves up to pursue them? If we love God, we will do as He asks (John 21:15-17).  We will do it with all that we are and in every area of our lives.  It will get to a point to where Love isn't just an every-once-in-a-while season, but it is one that we flow in every day.  Moreover, it will enhance all of the other seasons in which we find ourselves.

When to Hate

Hate is a season that we will find ourselves flowing in consistently, also.  However, unlike love, which is broad in it's application, hate is reserved for a specific purpose.  There is only one object which we are to hate as it is mentioned in the Bible: evil.

Ye that love the LORD, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.

If we love God and things of God, we will hate evil.  As we desire and need the things of God and His presence, we will also reject and abhor the things of the world and the enemy.  We will revile the opportunities to fall into the cares of this life and the pursuits of the world.  We won't be able to stand being in the presence of evil and the iniquity and immorality of sinfulness. 

To hate evil doesn't mean we reject people who have fallen prey to evil.  Those who are bound in sin and consumed with iniquity and worldliness need our love and care to help pull them out of the miry pit.  As we reach for people, though we must guard ourselves from the attacks of the enemy.  Our disdain for the world cannot be compromised by our compassion for others.  Being honest and forthright with people we are trying to help will help to guard us, and those individuals will respect us for our compassionate honesty.