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A CHRISTIAN WALK MINISTRIES Reverend Matthew & Mrs. Deborah Harper Copy righted material
Acts of the sinful nature are; sexual immorality, hate…discord and fits of rage. Galatians 5:19-20 NIV
What is hate? Webster’s dictionary tells us it means to harbor; intense hostility and aversion towards someone or something. When we dislike someone to the degree that we want to avoid them and harbor hostile feeling towards them, we have hatred in our heart. As a Christian, this is very bad position to be in because; if we don’t love our neighbor who we have seen how can we love God who we have not seen? I John4:20 NLT. If you have hatred in your heart towards someone there is no room for love.
Why do we hate? Because as all sinful acts, hatred is a result of our evil desires. There are many reasons why one person could hate another with prejudice, envy and jealousy being among the top ten reasons.
Sad thing about hating is it is such a negative, needless and unproductive behavior. Three basic things we need to remember about living a Christian life; a. God told us to love our neighbor not with a judgmental love but an unconditional love. b. We should give God thanks and praise him for our blessings and not envy others because of blessings God be stores upon them.
c. God works in relationships, just as he works in all things. Therefore we should not be jealous of any one. Couples in relationships should remember it is impossible to prove fidelity in a relationship, you can only prove a lack of it. Therefore, they should spend their time building a better relationship not on jealousy. If we understand, accept and practice these three notions there would be no room or need for hate in our lives.
Jim who is chief of a six member team drives a five year old Ford. Bill, a junior team member buys a new BMW. The other team members congratulate Bill on his new car. However, Jim begins to burn with envy. After all Jim is the boss, he earns a much larger salary, and Bill still has kids in high school and college. It was an affront to Jim’s pride that this junior team member could afford to drive such an expensive car and he could not. Jim’s envy caused him to grow hatred towards Bill. Although Bill was a highly productive team member Jim became relentless in his efforts to undermine everything Bill did. Jim even began to suspect Bill was involved in some illicit activity to pay for his BMW. Eventually Bill became frustrated with the treatment he was getting from Jim and transferred to another team. Production at Jim’s team dropped sharply when Bill left and Jim was fired. What Jim did not know, and did not ask, was Bill inherited a bundle of cash when his uncle, whom he loved much more then the cash he inherited, died.
Two lessons to learn fro this story: Be content with the blessings God gives you and don’t envy others for the blessings God gives to them. Secondly, don’t judge people because we are not in a position to judge only God is. Just love your neighbor. If they do sinful things, hate these things, but love the sinner and be a witness to them.
Earl was a burly veteran of the Vietnam War having served two years in heavy combat zones. Earl often told his golfing buddy Mitch about his wartime experiences. Earl had several Purple Heart medals for various injuries he received during combat and he was very vivid in expressing his profound hatred, to Mitch and others, of the Vietnamese people responsible for his suffering. Earl resented the fact that Vietnamese were allowed to come to this country and become a part of our society. He felt they were not worthy of being American citizens. Eventually Earl became seriously ill and needed a bone marrow transplant. No match was available and Earl was failing fast. One day Mitch told Earl he knew of a possible donor for the transplant if Earl was willing to accept. Desperate to survive Earl said he was willing to try anything. After many screening test the potential donor was found to be an excellent match and the operation was scheduled. A couple of days after the operation Earl met the donor that saved his life. It was Mitch’s brother-in-law Jim Lin a South Vietnamese soldier who suffered massive burn to his body during the war. While on patrol Jim Lin’s unit was mistaken for enemy forces and fired upon by an American helicopter killing 17 of the 22 men in his unit.
Earl was shocked and conflicted on several levels to know that this person he had categorized as being less than human had been capable of such an enormous and selfless act of mercy.
Mitch had told Jim Lin about Earl’s attitude towards Vietnamese people. However, Jim Lin was more concern about Earl’s need than his prejudices. Jim remembered the American medical team that saved his life after the attack on his unit. Jim knew that war is a terrible thing and bad things happen to good people and some times good people do –wrongly - bad things in time of war. It was from this experience that Earl eventually found Christ and learned that we are all one in Christ and in Him there is no hate only love.
Controlling the demon of hate; This demon is similar to prejudice in some ways. They both stir our emotions and form sinful attitudes driven by distorted opinions rather than facts. To control this demon do the following; a. Get away from the object of your hatred. Give yourself time to cool off and think. b. Take some time a think about why you harbor this hatred for whatever or who ever. c. Be honest with yourself in deciding if this hatred is justified. How long has this hatred been inside of you, is it worth the price you are paying? Hauling around a load of hate really is harmful to your health. d. Ask God to help you dump this load of hate from your wheelbarrow and wash it out. e. As far as it depends on you, try to make peace with the object of your hatred. If you a hate person that has done you wrong, forgive them. It will be to your great advantage to do this. Just depart from them and go your own way.
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