Hating is serious business! The Apostle John tells us how serious hating really is: “If anyone boasts, ‘I love God’ and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he CAN see, how can he love God he CAN’T see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving GOD includes loving PEOPLE. You’ve got to love BOTH” (1 John 4:20-21/The Message).
None of us goes through life unscathed. None of us escapes being wounded. None of us gets away without experiencing hurt. The cutting remark. The tale told out of school. The overbearing parent. Or spouse. Or boss. The family member who cuts you out of an inheritance. The friend who betrays you. The coworker who unjustly gets promoted. The one who smears your name. At first hating seems innocent enough, pampering our pain with periods of anger. But then hurt becomes hate, and hate becomes fury.
So how do we settle the score? It’s amazing how creative we can become at getting even. Writing a nasty unsigned letter. Ignoring them when they speak. Turning on the “deep freeze. Issuing a cutting remark in their presence. Ah, sweet revenge. Writes Max Lucado in The Grip of Grace: “I’m not about to let you heal before I do. As long as I suffer, you suffer. As long as I hurt, you hurt. You cut me, and I’m going to make you feel bad as long as I bleed, even if I have to reopen the wound myself.”
In our hearts, each of us knows that forgiveness is the key to breaking the cycle of hate. But knowing and doing are two different things. When we begin to realize that each of us has a debt far greater than our ability to repay, we’ll quit focusing on what THEY did to me and start focusing on what GOD did for me in Jesus Christ. John’s warning is stern: “The one who does not love is still in the realm of death, for everyone who hates…is a MURDERER, and no murderer, as you know, has eternal life within” (1 John 3:15/The New English Bible).
May/June 1997