Is Hate Ever Ok?

Song called Worthy by Matthew Patten,
Based on Hebrews 12

You prized me
Above all
Power, authority
Honor and praise

Jesus, you prized me
More
You desired me
More

Jesus, You are above all
Your name is higher
Jesus, You are above all
Your name is greater

Matthew 5:43-48 (TPT)

Lord,
Logic says that we should return the favor, love those who love us, and likewse with those who do not, help us to love everyone, so that we are better imitators of Our Father. Help us to be perfect as you are, complete, as you are. Change our hearts so that we can love those who do not love us. Forgive us in the times when we fail to do so, such as when long-awaited news is finally released. Help us to not hate anyone. Help us to see even thouse who have given themselves to evil for their whole lives through your eyes of compassion, rather than simple glee at the demise of an enemy.

Amen

Matthew 5:43-8

“Your ancestors have also been taught ‘Love your neighbors and hate the one who hates you.’ However, I say to you, love your enemy, bless the one who curses you, do something wonderful for the one who hates you, and respond to the very ones who persecute you by praying for them. For that will reveal your identity as children of your heavenly Father. He is kind to all by bringing the sunrise to warm and rainfall to refresh whether a person does what is good or evil. What reward do you deserve if you only love the loveable? Don’t even the tax collectors do that? How are you any different from others if you limit your kindness only to your friends? Don’t even the ungodly do that? Since you are children of a perfect Father in heaven, become perfect like him.”

How do we love those who have set themselves up as enemies to us or to God? Bless them, pray for them, and by being kind to them. How do we do that, when we are hurting due to their words and actions towards us? Our heart must change. We cannot cling to that pain, so we must forgive them (different topic, that has filled many books, can’t adequately cover it here), and ask the Lord to help us to see them through His eyes. What is their overarching purpose? (why did God make them) How did they get where they are? Are they in pain and lashing out? Once you have these revelations, compassion should replace much of the hurt or offense in you, not that you shouldn’t acknowledge these things. By all means, acknowledge the pain and offense, but instead of living there, give them to God, then ask Him for His heart towards that individual. This will allow our hearts to be changed, which will cause the rest of the human reaction to be diffused.

Bless those who curse you: this is not a, “Well, bless their heart” kind of blessing. This is a genuine desire to see God’s best for them in their lives. That is nigh impossible, other than as a fleeting thought, if you are trying to do this without the Holy Spirit’s help. You may change the behavior, but the underlying issues will likely remain.

Be kind to those who hate you, who actively seek to do you harm. Love on them. Serve them. This is harder than the blessing thing… We actually have to DO something about it, here, not just bless them from afar. We are called, here, to get down and dirty and choose to be kind to those who want to destroy us. This is putting rubber to the road in terms of coming in the opposite spirit. Our emotions will scream at us to return hatred with hatred, anger with anger, but this is higher than that.

Pray for salvation and revelation for those who persecute you for your faith. Do not pray for them to just be removed, much less taken out, unless God has made it clear that that is His plan first. He sees your pain. He will handle the problem, and/or you will grow to the point where it won’t matter so much.

All of this hinges on our hearts being changed by submission to the Holy Spirit and the Word of God in our lives. If our hearts are not radically altered through encounter with the Living God, these things are nearly unobtainable. As has been the usual in this chapter, Jesus is far more concerned with the condition of our hearts than he is with simple behavior modification. He is after seeing us grow into imaging Him more accurately, in becoming more sanctified and whole and closer to being able to partake in theosis, or unity with Him. That is a long road, and impossible in our human effort alone.

Let us not forget the truth of 9/11.