Love and Hate

Who or what do you love? Do you hate anyone or anything? Think about your answers for a bit.

Love and Hate. Those are strong words. I also think they are also overused and misused.

Granted, my worldview is shaped by what God says in the Bible. If your worldview isn't, you might not agree with my thesis on love and hate. That's fine. I'd be interested in your take on love and hate anyway. Your thoughts make me think. I like to think so I thank you in advance.

Jesus once explained what true love is. He said: "My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." You can find this in the Bible in the book of John, chapter 15, verses 12-14 (New International Version). Jesus laid down His life for His friends and for each of us. In turn, many of Jesus' friends laid down their lives so that we could hear Jesus' message.

My thought is this: If you truly love something, you will be willing to lay down your life for that thing - you would literally die for it if necessary. Given that thought I have changed my language somewhat. For example: I no longer say I love peanut butter cookies. I do like them a lot especially when they are warm and I have a some milk handy, but I guess I don't really love them because I am not willing to give up my life for the pleasure of having one.

What about hate? A student of Jesus named John wrote this about hate: "Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer...". This is in the book of 1 John, chapter 3, verse 15 (NIV). Where my thoughts take me regarding this is that if you truly hate someone, you would be willing to destroy them - to kill them - if given the opportunity. It says if you hate someone, you have already murdered them in your mind. When I hear people say they hate someone, I think to myself: "I wonder if they would really kill that person if given the chance?" Because of these thoughts, I have also adjusted my language in regard to hate. I have come to realize there are very few things that I hate. There are some individuals I dislike, but I don't hate anybody. I hope nobody hates me.

My good friend, Pastor Dan, and I were talking about this one day and I mentioned sin as something that we could feel good about hating and destroying. Pastor Dan said he doesn't think we really hate sin anyway. If we did, there would be a lot less of it around. I think Dan is right. Sometimes we don't hate sin enough and we don't really want to destroy it. In fact, I think we actually love some sin so much that we are willing to give our lives to have it. There's a thought.

Back to Jesus. He hated sin. He hated every sin. He hated sin so much that He was willing to do absolutely everything possible to destroy it once and for all. As a point of fact, Jesus gave up His life - not FOR sin as we do sometimes, but - to DESTROY sin. Therefore, I learn from this that if you hate something strongly enough, you'll be willing to die to destroy it so that others might live. I used to think that Jesus died for us just because He loved us so much. After thinking about this I realize He also died because He hated sin so much that he wanted to destroy it. Jesus proved His love for us and proved His hate for sin by giving His life once, for all of us.

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (Ever hear of John 3:16? That's it.)

What do you think?