This is a topic that everyone can relate to: Hate.
I am a true believer that God gave us our emotions so we shouldn't be ashamed to use them. However, all things should be done in moderation, otherwise our emotions will get the best of us. I'm not going to speak for anyone else but I have found in my own experience that typically when I have a problem with someone God draws me closer to them than further away. The reason, I believe, is because it is not God's will for us to have issues with each other and as one of His children, God has taught me a valuable lesson with that many, many times. Whether the people around us are Christian or not, Christ tells us to love everyone including our enemies ("You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." Matthew 5:43-44). This doesn't always mean that we have to be buddies with them, but showing them love and peace is our duty as God's children. I know of quite a few people whose best friends started out as one of their greatest enemies! How did that happen? The answer is when one person eventually broke the pattern of hatred and began showing kindness. When we tear down the wall between ourselves and our enemy, it allows God to do some amazing things in our lives!
This is not an easy task to complete. When someone has wronged us, it is our flesh to tear them down and make them hurt worse than they hurt us. Not only that, but often times it can become dangerous for us to get close to our enemies. Some people should be kept at a distance if their influences are negative for us. So how do we love our enemies at the same time that we guard our hearts from them? The key is in Matthew 5:44, where it says to PRAY for those who persecute you. Prayer is more powerful than any emotion we could feel, including hatred. It is the key to every step we take in life. It can change your life completely. Prayer is amazing! I challenge you to pray for someone you are struggling to like as a person, at least for a week, and see what wonders God can do in your own heart.
In a generation where divorce is so common, there also lies a lot of bitterness; a lot of hurt that causes anger and hatred. If you are a friend on my facebook, you have witnessed that I STILL struggle with bitterness in my heart from time to time. But the day that I let my guard down and began praying for my ex husband, God made His presence known to me. I found myself more at peace with the pain I had gone through, I stopped picking fights and playing into his instigation's. Now I pray for him every day, especially when my anger is at its peak. And through that prayer, God has helped me to stop looking at him as the enemy and more as someone who needs a lot of prayer from me. As a mother, I am provoked even more to hate certain people who have hurt my son, but ONLY by the grace of God have I found peace to pray for those people and show them love instead.
There is one person in this world who has hurt me more than anyone will ever understand. My fleshly desire is to stay as far away from them as possible. But the more I try to avoid them, the more God seems to keep putting them in my path. So just recently I stopped focusing on what this person did to me and started lifting them up in prayer. It seems like they are sincerely changing their life around, which at one point in my life could have made me hate them even more. But now, with God's peace it comforts my heart to know that this person is changing their life and I hope that some day I will see them in Heaven. I understand now that God has the power to change any person and who am I to stand in the way of that? What kind of a Christian would I be to cause a stumbling block for someone whom God is working on?
Whenever my skin begins to boil, one way God humbles me is by reminding me of all of the people I've hurt too. We're all guilty of it. Even the most laid back, compassionate person has broken some hearts in their lifetime. Can we stand feeling justified in hating someone for hurting us when we are guilty of hurting people ourselves? Going back to Matthew 5, verses 23 and 24 tell us how we should make amends with our brother's before coming to God. We can't live with bitterness in our hearts and say we are living as Christians at the same time. We can't serve other people in Christ's name when we know that we are hurting other people at the same time. It is our duty to make it right, not God's. He gives us the peace that we need in our hearts but He calls US to take the action. Verse 33 says that we must keep the oaths we have made to the Lord. One of the greatest vows we make just in becoming a true Christian, is the love we are to share with the rest of this world... even our enemies. Not just the people who are easy to love, for there is no gain in that (vs. 46-47). Like I said, from my experience God draws me closer to the people I would love to hate. Clearly this is a good sign that He is moving in me. I do not want to fail, I want to be an example of God's love.
What hurts me more than anything is seeing fellow brothers and sisters in Christ have issues with each other. If we can't even get along with one another, how do we expect to be an example for the rest of the world? We are all God's children which makes us a family. In fact, we are to be more of a family than the worldy parents, siblings, cousins, etc. that God gave us. We need to lay aside all pettiness and focus on the bigger picture: GOD.
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." Matthew 5:9
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