In our pursuit of what it means to love what God loves and hate what He hates, we have discovered that loving our enemies is not about being infinitely nice, but about representing God’s character, in this case, His mercy. And we have found that the plan is not make the world like us so much that everyone wants to become a Christian, but to validate our message with a unique unity among believers, borne …
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Ok, so loving my enemies, doesn’t mean that I shower my foes with cupcakes and butterfly kisses. Instead, it means that godly righteousness manifests God’s attributes, one of which is mercy. But still, doesn’t the Bible say that “they will know that we are Christians by our love”? I mean, the dominant theme in Christianity today is our “responsibility” to engage the social issues of our culture. It’s how we prove we care and validate …
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In our exploration of what it means to “love what God loves, and hate what He hates”, we began with Jesus’ words to “Love your enemies” – words that seem to make “hate” in any form, illegitimate.
These words are in the Sermon on the Mount, and in Part 1, we saw that Jesus’ purpose in it was not to establish a code of conduct, but rather describe the kind of righteousness necessary for entrance into …
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As we explore what it means to “love what God loves, and hate what He hates“, it seems best to begin by examining key Biblical teachings that seem to undermine this notion.
We will start with Jesus’ command to “love your enemies,” which is recorded in both Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27, 35). These words were not spoken in isolation, and to understand them, we must understand …
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Most of us are quite aware that God calls us to love what He loves, but I don’t think I had given much thought to hating the things He hates. Not until recently.
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