Unforgiveness and Hate

One of the most cruel and destructive ... if not the most destructive attitude ... for a Christian to possess and display is hatred. Let's think about it and ask ourselves this question: How bright can the saving light of Jesus Christ shine in a life that's totally shrouded in hatred, anger, rage, and malice (Eph 4:31-32)? And what picture of Christ can this type of person reveal to the unbelieving world around them? Not a very pretty one as we might imagine.

Hate is ugly and cruel and paints a dark, distorted, and damaging image of the Savior. Hate is a total breakdown in the Christlike attributes we are called to exhibit in our lives. And yet sadly, even in our churches, it's not difficult to find individuals just brimming and spilling over with hostility against others or against a particular group of people. This is a grave matter. Let's give it serious concern. We would do well to ask ourselves where this vile and dangerous venom comes from. It comes from deep inside us where we try to hide it from the revealing light of Christ. We must always be on guard against it. And we must denounce it wherever we find it, in ourselves and in others. One of the main reasons we believers are just as prone to hatred as the unbelieving world around us, is our inability to forgive those who have hurt us ... especially when such treatment is felt to be undeserved or unfair. Even if that were so, where in Scripture can we find support for this type of unforgiving spirit? We can't.

Let's take a minute and take a "hate test." For a moment, let's think about someone who has hurt us in the past and consider these "hate checks":

1. If we hate someone, we cannot dispose of the memory. Does the image play out over and over again in our minds, festering with disgusting malice and ill will?

2. If we hate someone, we can't honestly wish them well or hope they have good fortune. Can we honestly still wish the very best for them? Can we hope for them the same Christian attributes we hope for ourselves?

3. If we hate someone, we want that person to hurt just as much as we hurt. Do we secretly desire this person to experience the same degree of pain that was thrust upon us? Do we, deep down inside, desire bad things to befall this person? Do we want revenge? Do we strive and hope for a "justified" sense of retribution?

If these questions have revealed any animosity in our hearts toward any one, or any group of people, we mustn't leave our computers today without prayerfully meditating on the verses in Ephesians chapter four and asking God for forgiveness. When we harbor unforgiveness toward anyone, it interferes with our forgiveness from God, and exhibits in us, behaviors unbecoming a Christian. Let me say that again: Unforgiveness toward anyone interferes with our forgiveness from God, and exhibits in us behaviors unbecoming a Christian. We need to read the verses in Ephesians out loud and personalize them into a prayer, letting God's Holy Spirit cleanse our hearts by empowering us to forgive an old hurt. If we won't forgive others, how can we hope to be forgiven by God? (Notice I didn't say "can't forgive others." In Christ it's possible for us to forgive every one for every thing. If we don't forgive it's because we won't forgive and not that we can't forgive. This is a hard truth but one that we need to fully understand and correct when and where necessary.)

Hate is a vicious venom that paralyzes and slowly erodes at the quality of our Christian life, and there is no room in our hearts, cleansed and renewed, for holding unforgiveness (Ps 51). We have been forgiven and we in turn must forgive others. This is not optional for us. This is a very serious matter between us and our God and is a prerequisite for us. We must take whatever time we need to rid our souls of the cancer of hatred. We mustn't leave our chairs until we right this wrong. This is an insidious errant matter that must be remedied before it totally eats away our ability to stand forgiven before our God. An unforgiving spirit not only tries to damage those we feel have wronged us, it damages us at the same time ... in the same way. Because it interferes with our relationship with God we must be intolerant of this type of attribute and not allow it to take root in our lives. We are called to glorify our God and we can't do that if we are harboring hate and an avenging spirit. Christ will not forgive us if we won't forgive others. Hatred damages our relationship with our heavenly Father and won't allow us to live the way we are meant to live. We mustn't allow ourselves to fall victim to this instrument of Satan. And we can know it's of Satan by the very fact that it does not bring anything worthy of Christ into our lives and into the lives of others.

This has been a difficult devotional to write. I've tried to express how dangerous and damaging an unforgiving spirit is to ourselves and I'm afraid I have failed. An unforgiving spirit sits inside us like some hot, pulsating pustule of bacteria just swelling and festering with the infection of hatred. We must do away with it before it bursts and poisons our entire being. Hatred does more than injure the ones we hate, it injures us in the process. How can the love of Christ grow in a heart that is over shadowed by intolerance and unforgiveness? How can this tarnish glorify the light of Christ? It can't. That's the whole point to today's blog. We don't so much injure others as we injure ourselves when we possess an unforgiving spirit. It's like a boomerang that comes back to us if we throw it out to other people and it slams shut the door to the gospel. There is simply no place in our Christian lives for malice and hatred. It does not fit. It consumes everything good in us and leaves us standing as empty shells before our God. I hope I have gotten the point across but I fear I haven't done a very good job at it. I love words. I'm a person of words. But sometimes words fail me. Simply put: When we hate others, we injure ourselves.

Well Kathleen (my Heart) should be getting back from her vacation today if they didn't make it back yesterday. She has shared her vacation with me via email and it's been a lot of fun. Pray for her that she comes home refreshed and revived and ready to use her experience in the lives of her students when school resumes next week. Betty is still in Albuquerque and I forgot to go online yesterday so other than just saying hello/goodbye to her, we haven't yet had the chance to talk about what and how she's doing. Pray for her that she'll learn quickly and be set to go to work as soon as her training ends.

I was told that I didn't put skatemama's blogspot in correctly so I will attempt it again. Her address is http://skatemama.blogspot.com/. Don't know what I did wrong before but hopefully this has cleared up any problems I may have caused. We have a beautiful blue sky outside but the air is a bit brisk this morning. I'm supposed to meet with Pastor Dan this afternoon to go over making the slides of the praise songs. I have serious doubts that it's something I can do. Guess I'll find out. No other news to write about. It seems to take me so long to write my blog sometimes. Other times I breeze right through it. Today was not a breeze. I had to really work for what I wrote and now can only hope my message was understandable and I got my points across. I hope you have a wonderful day today and until tomorrow... [Afternote: My blogger keeps telling me that unforgiveness isn't a word and believe it or not, I can't find it in my dictionary. But I will just have to hope it's a word and I've spelled it correctly.]