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Saginaw, Michigan, United States
A sinner who may come before God because of Christ

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

That Which The Lord Hates part 1

(Proverbs 6:16-19) There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

We don't like to use the word "hate" much in our culture. It is such a "negative" word, and we want to live in a positive place - a place where we are affirmed and grow and prosper, where peace abounds aplenty and there is no conflict.

Much of the current view of God is that He is loving, which means to many that He will bring "good" upon us (meaning stuff we want). When we mention things like God's wrath, God's punishment, sin, God's anger - this can take one aback a little. Whoa, a kind, tender, loving God wouldn't get angry or punish - well, He might "time out" or "scold", but not bring down His ire like thunder on a mountain!

Well, He has and promises He will. Our vision of God is often this big, huggable guy - the friendly giant, the sweet old man next door (some even paint Him as the nice grandma, but that's another blog, another time). We fail to realize that God is as complex and multi-dimensional as we are and even more so.

Scripture tells us that He has emotions. Not the out-of-control, mind-of-their-own human-type emotions but perfect emotions (why wouldn't they be perfect, He is God?) So God reacts perfectly to every situation. He knows how to perfectly respond so that His attributes of perfect mercy and perfect justice are met as well.

God warns us about the things that make Him mad. The passage at the start of this is one of them. There are more.

If my dad said to me, "Tom, stop talking" guess what, I shut up. If I didn't I would "get in trouble". This could be any number of options, but if he said "Tom, stop talking or I will spank you" then that pretty much cleared things up. I would usually shut up.

That is how God has done this. He has warned us (pointed out that which is a sin) and given us the consequences (usually eternal time out - death by separation from Him, which also means that we are no longer under His protection from pain, suffering, etc.).

If you are a true Christian, one who is repentant of sin and under the Lordship of Christ, meaning that you are no longer living for yourself but living for Christ, then that means someone else did your punishment for your sins, which is a pretty wonderful thing to me, personally.

So my attempts at obedience to Christ is out of love for Him for what He did rather than out of fear of God for what He says He will do because I sin. This is the essence of the Christian walk - to love Christ more through knowing Him deeper by obedience to Him. That is our response to the Cross.

I will get into the specifics of "That Which The Lord Hates" in more blogs as I look at our response to Proverbs 6:16-19

For His Glory,
Tom

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