As we continue the journey of learning what it means to “love and hate like God”, I am drawn back to a passage we touched on in last week’s look at the Kingdom – Hebrews 10 & 11 – particularly 10:26-39.
Yet, when I go back and read the passage, it doesn’t quite fit our pursuit as we’ve described it. We set out to find the things we should love because God loves them, and the things we should hate because God hates them. But this passage does not focus on our displeasure with other things, or even God’s displeasure with other things – it focuses on His potential displeasure with us.
Still, I can’t let go of the sense that we need to take a deeper look at this passage. Why?
Pausing to reflect, I realize the need for more clarity on exactly what we are pursuing. Describing our goal as “loving what God loves, and hating what He hates” was enough of a destination to start the journey, but now I see the need for a more specific destination.
Kind of like deciding to go backpacking in Colorado. While Colorado is an ideal place to backpack, there is a lot of Colorado that will not deliver the experience I have in mind when I think “backpacking in Colorado”. What I am looking requires a more specific destination.
So, how can I better define our pursuit of loving and hating like God? Three issues come to mind.
“Loving What God Loves . . .”?
First is the need to acknowledge an underlying, almost subconscious awareness that my “loving what God loves” part of the equation has never quite done justice to the idea it is supposed to capture.
This whole journey flowed out of a prayer time in which the themes of “love” and “hate” were juxtaposed in connection with my relationship with God. However, the “love” aspect was not prompted by reading about things that God loves. It was generated by a sense of His pleasure in my “love” of His gifts to me.
This difference is subtle, but significant. The point is not to figure out a list of the things God loves, and adopt that list as my own. This is about relationship; about fellowship. God’s gifts to me are not purely utilitarian. They are also for my enjoyment. Food not only keeps me alive, God has also arranged things so that eating can be quite pleasurable. Even our spiritual gifts – although they serve the body – give us a sense of satisfaction when exercised properly. That’s why they are called “gifts”, not “tools”. He gives them for our enjoyment. But He also gives them for His enjoyment. He takes pleasure in our proper enjoyment of them.
So “loving what God loves” is really about “fellowship” – about a shared enjoyment of His gifts to me. He and I “share together” in the enjoyment of these gifts.
“Hating What God Hates”
Perhaps the reason that I failed to see the “loving” side of the equation more clearly is because I was so drawn to the “hate” side. Indeed, as I have talked with others about this journey, it is “hating what God hates” that has drawn the responses – usually along the lines of, “We don’t like to think about what God hates.” It’s like there is a subsurface awareness that there is a part of God that we’re not familiar with.
As I consider this, I revisit David’s words –
“O that You would slay the wicked, O God; . . . Do I not hate those who hate You, O LORD? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You? I hate them with the utmost hatred; They have become my enemies.” (Psalms 139:19–22 NAS95)
There is strength in these words . . . and discrimination. God has enemies, and David has aligned himself with God against them. He doesn’t just have a “relationship with God”; he is God’s friend. So God’s enemies are his enemies.
This stirs me. This kind of friendship with God. There is weight and substance to this friendship. This is what I am drawn to.
And now I am reminded that God seemed to direct my attention to these words during that prayer time, like He wanted me to stir my heart in this way. To show me what is available.
A List . . . or . . .?
But, I think I may have been expecting something else. If I am honest, I have to admit that my original expectations were that this exploration would produce a list – “things/people that I approve because God approves them, things/people that I condemn because God hates them”. But that feels pretty “administrative”. If that’s all we’re after, just give me the list. I can do those things without ever knowing God.
But He wants more. He wants the depth of friendship. And that means sharing life. Sharing in the enjoyment of His gifts. Sharing in opposition of His enemies. This is the destination.
And that means that I am going to have to know Him ever better. Because while we are friends, we are by no means equals. True, He knows my heart’s desires, and often enjoys satisfying them. But it is His values, His priorities, His perspective that are the heart of our friendship.
In this light, passages like Hebrews 10:26-39 become critical. So does 1 John 3:15-17. And James 4:4. They are route markers for the next leg of our journey.
(Next article )
I appreciate so may things about this blog Garth. It gives me a chance to journey with you, to watch your thoughts unfold and to consider my own thoughts and journey in light of, and in relation to what you are sharing.
I agree that it is all about the relationship that we have with Him, but it is sometimes difficult to say more and accurately capture what we are groping to find, to discover.
This morning in my prayer time I was thanking God for who He is. I am so thankful that He does not get twisted up in His thinking or His emotions as we sometimes do as men and women. I am thankful that He is good, and that, for example, He disciplines us for our certain good. He is relentless in that work, and I am thankful that He is. In that work He is imparting His character to us, imparting His divine nature. And in that process, as we consciously grow in Him we begin to love what He loves, and hate what He hates. I think we develop a sense of these things, and then there is the challenge of putting that growth, that process into words.
I agree, it is not simply a list. As God is One who looks at the heart, I can’t help but think that He is looking at the heart as we learn, and as He reveals what He loves and what He hates. For example, it is the essence of what is wicked that He hates, and not simply the expression of wickedness. David committed murder, and before that, adultery. God hates the pride and the selfishness that grows up in us to the point of committing such actions, but He does not hate the person who foolishly allows such things to happen. Yet, He hates the prideful spirit that refuses to confess, and repent, so when such actions go unchecked and remorse is forever lost, (the sinner stiffens his neck), I dare say there is that place of no return where the essence of evil has overtaken the man or woman such that He now hates the sinner who at this point in time has willfully chosen to live in a state of utter rebellion against God.
The essence of our part is what are we becoming.
So, for me, in learning what God loves, and what He hates, it is like the life of lovers. As I want to spend time with someone, I will learn to enjoy what they enjoy, and do what they like to do, and before long, I am likely to become like them in ways I never thought I would. The thing I appreciate most about God in this context is that I can utterly give myself over to Him (without reservation or being on my guard, as we must with fellow humans), because I know He is worthy of my life. His substance is deeper, richer, greater and more satisfying than anything else I know. And He truly does give life, for He is the fountain of life. And He is good; the esence of it, the origin of it, and the completeness of it. And then to think, to realize, to contemplate that He is about a work in me to impart His divine nature. He disciplines me for my certain good to bring about that character – and He is relentless in that work. I am so thankful that He is, for when left to myself, all of life gets twisted up and bent out of shape.
I will gladly learn what God love and what He hates. Not because it will support my agenda, but because I want His agenda. I want Him, and all that He has to offer. It is not a mindless existence, but rather one that requires us to give it our all-all of our intellect to track His trail, as well as all of our heart, soul, body and strength.
And so as believers we are left at that place where we celebrate Him, and give thanks.
In your preamble, you cite Hebrews 10:26-39. Verse 26: “for IF we go on sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.” The following verses 27-39 cite some fairly dire consequences.
Are verses 27-39 addressing the believer who sins and falls short of perfection & holiness; or are verses 27-39 addressing those who have heard the gospel and persist in aposty?
Dan,
Great question!
Those verses are addressed to believers, and the consequences are indeed dire, but I believe that the questions we bring to passages like this cause us to misunderstand them. This is the issue we are looking at in the next string of articles about the Pleasure of God’s Soul.