I have
a confession to make. I hate someone. There I said it; it is out in the open.
There is someone in this world that I do not like. You are probably wondering
why I am making such a big deal of confessing that I do not like someone.
Because, let’s face it, we all have someone in our lives that just drives us
nuts! They are our polar opposites! Sometimes, being in the same room with them
irritates you to the point where if feels like there are bugs crawling on your
skin. You are a motivated person who likes to do things, they are a not so
motivated person who would much rather make
“For
this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love
one another.” 1 John 3:11 ESV
How do
I know that I do not love this person in my life? Because God showed me my true
heart for this person, even though on the outside one would think that I did
love them, on the inside my heart declared before God the opposite of love. My
heart showed God that I hated my brother. For us to understand what it means to
love one another I first think we must understand what it means to love. John
is the disciple of love, so who better than he to teach us and show us our true
hearts before the Lord?
“Whoever
says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever
loves his brother abides in the light and in him there is no cause for
stumbling. But whoever hates his brother is in darkness and walks in the
darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded
his eyes.” 1 John 2:9
What is
love then? What does love for our fellow brothers’ look like in the life of a believer?
John tells us that if we are in the light then we understand spiritual truth.
We understand the love of God for us, and the love of God for man. We
understand and believe that Jesus died for every single person and every single
sin upon the face of the earth. We understand spiritual things, if we are in
the light. We not only understand these truths but we proclaim them. We live
and breathe as Christians upon this earth. We go to church, serve in our
bodies, fellowship with other believers, evangelize and help others to understand
these same spiritual truths. John also tells us that if we say we are in the
light and we hate our brother, then that light is false, and we are in truth,
still in darkness.
The
opposite of love is hate. I have had a few people tell me that the opposite of
love is not hate, but indifference, but for the context of what the Lord was
showing me about the sin that is in my heart, we are going to say, for now,
that hate is the opposite of love. (We can save the debate for another post!)
What does God see as hate then? If hate is the opposite of love, what then is
hate? Hate is to love someone less, or esteem them to be lower than you. Hate
neither respects nor likes that person at all. Hate shows disdain. It looks at
the person and says I don’t like you, I don’t respect you and I do not in any
way have any love for you at all.
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Love on
the other hand. Love, as described by John in the above passage, means to be
full of good will towards another. Love looks at that same person and says no
matter whom you are, no matter what you do, I love you. This is the same love
that God had for us when He gave His only begotten Son for us. It is the same
love that Christ had as He willingly hung on the cross for us. This is the love
that God commands us to have for our fellow brothers and sisters. Hate looks at
all the faults and wrongs of the person before us and determines that they are
not worthy enough to receive anything other than disdain from us. Hate says you
are not worth my time.
When I
thought about what the Lord was showing me in regards to love and its opposite of
hate, I got a picture of Jesus in my head. There He was hanging on the cross,
bleeding and suffering so willingly in my place. I pictured Him looking at me
and saying to me, “You are worth it.” He did not look at me and list all my
faults, all my sins; all the things I am that irritated Him. No, He looked past
all of the wrong in me and saw only His blood flowing over me. He did not for
one second while hanging on that cross; consider a single one of my sins.
Instead He just nailed them to His cross and said, “I love you this much.” That
is the love we are to have for our brother. That is what love looks like in the
life of a believer. That, my friend, is love.
This
humbled me to my core. Because I must admit that the person whom I have hate
towards has lots of faults, and in my mind I play them over and over again. All
I can do sometimes is think about how opposite we are and how much I wish, just
once, that they would show me the same respect that I show them. My unloving
thoughts, my hate filled feelings towards another person is not only a stumbling
block for me, but it is, and can be a stumbling block for someone else. How can
my hate for this person cause someone else to stumble? Because I don’t just
think about this persons fault in my mind, I speak them to others, and they see
that person the way I just presented them- as unworthy, someone I hate.
“Do
nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more
significant than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3
Paul
explains to us that we are to be humble in our relationships and dealings with
other people. We are to understand our deep need for a Savior and also
understand that the person we hate needs Jesus just as badly as we do. When I
focus on all that this person is not I fall into darkness. I become blind to my
own need for forgiveness and my own faults and sins. I walk in darkness and am
no longer walking in the light. When I start to focus on all that they are not
and I begin to speak it to others, I not only trip up myself by my hate, but I
lead others to follow my example as well! My disrespect for this person causes
others to sin! When we have anger, negative thoughts, negative comments,
complaining or grumbling against another brother or sister in the Lord, we are not
walking in love. We are walking in hate and we are lost, we do not know where
we are going, and neither do the ones who are following us. We become the blind
leading the blind!
“If we
say we have fellowship with Him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not
practice the truth.” 1 John 1:6
All
negative thoughts, the pointing the finger, the gossip, the complaining, the “venting”
we do about others does not in any way exhibit goodwill toward our brother and
is hate. No amount of complaining, grumbling, or dwelling on how terrible this
person is will ever change them. Think about it for just a minute. How do we
change? How do we change our behaviors, our attitudes and our lives? It is
through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, and only when we allow Him to
do the work in our hearts. It is only through the divine influence of God upon
our lives that we change, so why do we think that our negative comments, our complaining
and grumbling is going to change them? The only thing it does is show our true
heart for that person, and prove to us that we are not walking in love but in
hate.
“Whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk
in the same way in which He walked……We know that we have passed out of death
into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has
eternal life abiding in him. By this we know love, that He laid down His life
for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” 1 John 2:6….3:14-16
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If we
love our brothers than we will be willing to look past all their wrongs, all
their faults, all their sins and just love them anyway. We will be able to
stand alongside them and pray for them. One thing that the Lord has shown me is
that no matter what I say or what I do, no matter how many times I plead with
Him to change this person in my life, He is only concerned with me. He knows
this persons heart and He sees their life just as clearly as He sees mine. But
the only one He is focused on when I stand before Him is mine. He asks me to
keep His commandments. He asks me to obey His word. He asks me to love my
brother. So how then are we to love? What does love look like in the life of a
believer? What should love look like in me?
“Let no
corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building
up as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Ephesians
4:29
If we
love our brothers, our words will testify to it. No unwholesome, unfit or disrespecting
words about that person will ever come from our mouths. We will not gossip
about them, we will not complain about them, we will not allow our thoughts to
dwell on their faults and sins. We will only speak what is edifying, what is
encouraging and what produces grace, not only in our hearts, but in the hearts
of all those who hear us.
What we
allow our minds to focus on will be what comes out of the abundance of our
hearts. If all I ever see is the sin, the faults, the person that they are not;
then I will never see them as Christ saw them when He hung upon the Cross for
them. We must stop focusing on what they are not and focus on Christ, who was
and is and is to come. When those thoughts and those feelings of hate filled thoughts
begin to rise in our minds and hearts, or when the anger begins to bubble up to
the surface again, picture Christ. Picture Christ upon that Cross and walk in
the light of true love for that person. Don’t let the seeds of bitterness,
anger, evil speaking, gossip and pointing of the fingers take root in your
heart again. But rather, let the love of Christ that was shed abroad from
Calvary grow up into grace for all who will hear you. Therefore, let us love
one another, even as Christ loved us. In Jesus name, amen and amen.
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