By Pr Isaiah White
God is love, but love is not God. Because God is love, this shows how hateful God is. When we speak of God as love, we must be careful not to compromise His identity as permissive and indiscriminately inclusive of all that is even against His will and principles.
The Bible is replete with verses that attest to this loving God’s wrath. God is Just, and His justice includes the ability to administer justice where it is due.
A loving God will stand in that position while unbelieving sinners perish in Hell.
Christianity does not teach that God will burn people forever in Hell, but those who do not choose God have chosen death by default, and they will eventually get what they deserve.
Those of us who have chosen God will be given eternal life. That is why it is referred to as salvation rather than qualification.
God must hate because He is the essence of true love, and He would not be a good God if He did not feel disapproval. He loves and hates.
Hearts of wickedness
God despises the fourth thing: the heart. God loathes a specific heart, the heart that devises evil plans. The fourth thing that God hates serves as the source of all that God hates.
All of the things that God hates in Proverbs 6:16-19 are related to the heart.
The heart here refers to the deep center of who you are as a person, rather than the physical organ in your body that pumps blood.
The sins on this list cannot be avoided through effort alone, but only through a heart transformed by God. Everything you do is a result of what’s going on in your heart.
God’s hatred is aimed at the heart. “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” warned Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 17:9).
A deception is a mix of facts and lies that result in the wrong outcome. A heart that concocts evil is a heart with evil intentions.
We worship a God who considers not only what we do, but also our intentions.
He is interested in what we are planning. If your heart plots and weaves wickedness, God will hate you. It is a matter of your thoughts and plans.
Jesus warns us that our actions are determined by our thoughts: “You brood of vipers, how can you speak what is good while being evil?”
Because the mouth speaks from what is in the heart. The good man brings what is good from his good treasure, and the evil man brings what is evil from his evil treasure.
But I tell you that every careless word that people speak will be held accountable on the day of judgment. For it is your words that will justify you, and it is your words that will condemn you” (Matthew 12:34-37).
Feet that run to evil
There is a sequence of evil here. If evil thoughts and imaginations are nurtured and fed, they will eventually lead to sinful actions.
Our feet follow in the footsteps of our hearts, minds, and thoughts.
According to Proverbs 23:7, we are what we think in our hearts. God despises feet that are quick to cause trouble.
The feet represent lifestyle and practice in the Bible. The Christian walk is represented by the feet; what we do and how we act.
The phrasing of this proverb does not say God hates the feet, but we are told God hates an individual who plans evil and swiftly acts on their evil plan.
God is opposed to speed, not just the effectiveness of evil practice, but also the efficiency with which evil is dealt with.
Thinking awkwardly is understandable, but acting on awkwardness immediately attracts God’s wrath.
In chapter 59:7, the prophet Isaiah lists three of the seven things God despises: “Their feet run to evil, and they rush to shed innocent blood; their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.”
We are frequently quick with evil and slow with good. On the night of the betrayal, Jesus reminded Judas of his willingness to betray Him, but Judas was already prepared.
Jesus then told him to hurry because it was evil. We live in a time in which products lack process.
We want finished products without minding healthy processes. We eat fast food, rush through relationships and want quick fixes.
Everything is rushed. We spread rumours quickly, and Christians may do so in the form of a “prayer request,” but only for the subject of gossip.
We are frequently so eager to do so, that we fail to verify the information we have received before passing it on. God detests all these things.
The writer is a life coach and theologian.
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