Lenten Devotions - Day 11
“Hatred stirs up trouble; love overlooks the wrongs that others do.” Proverbs 10:12
We desperately want to believe that hatred centers on the other person—the one who has wronged us or those we love. Perhaps we extend it to some who have insulted God or the patterns of our religious convictions. At heart, however, hatred is a personal issue. It is a private world that revolves around our own response to a lagging sense of worth and self-protection.
Our libraries shelves, movie theaters, and even our children’s cartoons are full of stories pointing out that those who are the most filled with hate are the villains of meanest character. They are the arrogant, self-serving, narcissists who hate those who provide a critique to the value or self-serving interests of the one whose hate is most evident. They are the troublemakers.
When we look at our own hatred, however, we blot out what we naturally know about hatred. We ignore the wisdom of our vast entertainment literature, as well as the wisdom of God. Hatred is bad in others, we try to say, but not in ourselves. Our own hatreds are justifiable responses to injuries we have suffered from the negligence or evil actions of others. We hate them because of what they have done. It is a comment on their character, not our own.
By such logic, God should hate us. It would be justifiable for God to hate all of humanity, for we have all offended God, trashed God’s creation, neglected to render worship and praise to our creator. We are even complicit in nailing God to a cross in our rejection of God’s interference in our lives, serving our traditions about God rather than very God. Such is not the logic, nor the choice of God.
Rather than hate, God calls us to love. Rather than anger over injury, grievance, and suffering, God calls us to forgiveness and restoration. God calls us to love.
When we are injured, God says, “Forgive.” When we are assaulted, God says, “Love.” When we are wronged, God says, “Become more like me and display grace and mercy.” Rather than look outside us to find excuses for living without love, we are to look within to find God’s love to share with those who are still yearning for acceptance, worth, and love.
As self-justified as our hatred may seem, it does nothing more than destroy and create trouble. It is never a Godly response. It is never Jesus’ way of answering those who have wronged another. Rather than hatred, Jesus taught and responded with love. While this love did not ignore the realities of sin and evil, it looked beyond them to offer a better way of responding and restoring what is broken.
Am I ready to look beyond the hatreds I harbor to find the restoring love of God?
Identify where hatred, anger, and resentment still reign in your life. Give them up to the One who lay down his own life in love in the face of our anger, rebellion, and hatred.
“Lord, help me to let go of my hatred, anger, and resentment. Help me to see those who have injured me or my friends as needing the restoring grace of your love flowing through me.”
—©Copyright 2009 Christopher B. Harbin http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/
We desperately want to believe that hatred centers on the other person—the one who has wronged us or those we love. Perhaps we extend it to some who have insulted God or the patterns of our religious convictions. At heart, however, hatred is a personal issue. It is a private world that revolves around our own response to a lagging sense of worth and self-protection.
Our libraries shelves, movie theaters, and even our children’s cartoons are full of stories pointing out that those who are the most filled with hate are the villains of meanest character. They are the arrogant, self-serving, narcissists who hate those who provide a critique to the value or self-serving interests of the one whose hate is most evident. They are the troublemakers.
When we look at our own hatred, however, we blot out what we naturally know about hatred. We ignore the wisdom of our vast entertainment literature, as well as the wisdom of God. Hatred is bad in others, we try to say, but not in ourselves. Our own hatreds are justifiable responses to injuries we have suffered from the negligence or evil actions of others. We hate them because of what they have done. It is a comment on their character, not our own.
By such logic, God should hate us. It would be justifiable for God to hate all of humanity, for we have all offended God, trashed God’s creation, neglected to render worship and praise to our creator. We are even complicit in nailing God to a cross in our rejection of God’s interference in our lives, serving our traditions about God rather than very God. Such is not the logic, nor the choice of God.
Rather than hate, God calls us to love. Rather than anger over injury, grievance, and suffering, God calls us to forgiveness and restoration. God calls us to love.
When we are injured, God says, “Forgive.” When we are assaulted, God says, “Love.” When we are wronged, God says, “Become more like me and display grace and mercy.” Rather than look outside us to find excuses for living without love, we are to look within to find God’s love to share with those who are still yearning for acceptance, worth, and love.
As self-justified as our hatred may seem, it does nothing more than destroy and create trouble. It is never a Godly response. It is never Jesus’ way of answering those who have wronged another. Rather than hatred, Jesus taught and responded with love. While this love did not ignore the realities of sin and evil, it looked beyond them to offer a better way of responding and restoring what is broken.
Am I ready to look beyond the hatreds I harbor to find the restoring love of God?
Identify where hatred, anger, and resentment still reign in your life. Give them up to the One who lay down his own life in love in the face of our anger, rebellion, and hatred.
“Lord, help me to let go of my hatred, anger, and resentment. Help me to see those who have injured me or my friends as needing the restoring grace of your love flowing through me.”
—©Copyright 2009 Christopher B. Harbin http://www.sermonsearch.com/contributors/104427/
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