Why I Can't Hate Back

Here's my problem with this whole topic of love and hate: They can hate me, but I can't hate back.

I want to. Oh boy, do I want to. Someone yells at me, or flips me off, or cheats me, and I want to do some damage. When I read hate speech against Christians, I can start hating people I've never even met. And you don't want to see what's inside my head any time someone hurts one of my family.

John says that's off limits now. That was the old me. "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer,and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him." (1 John 3:14-15)

Hate is the Devil's way, not the way of Jesus. Hate and death are partners; hatred and murder have the same root. One is emotional thought, the other an action, but both are caused by looking at people through worldly, self-centered eyes. Both come from a world-view that says I must be respected and listened to, and even catered to. Don't cross me! Murder is just the ultimate extension of the emotion of hate.

Since I've died in Christ and risen again hate has no place anymore. Jesus was mocked and tortured to death, yet He didn't hate. Instead He forgave; He forgave me. And gave me a simple job: Go and make disciples of other death-deserving reprobates like me. That's hard to do when you want to kill the guy. But it's harder to hate when I remember that I've behaved far worse toward God than anyone ever has toward me. I can't be grateful and hateful at the same time.

Why They Hate Me

1 John 3:13: "Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you."

I'm always surprised when anyone hates me. Why would they? I'm a nice guy! Average, by most measures, reasonably clean, not completely ugly, nice to people, do my work, don't make waves. I can see why maybe they don't love me, by why hate me?

I've noticed something, though: Most of the hatred people express isn't toward other people, it's toward ideas. This is especially noticeable now that the Internet has given everyone a voice, and anonymity to go with it. But when people curse Muslims, they really seem to hate the crazy way the world has changed since 9/11; most of them don't even know any Muslims. When they bash gays, they hate something else that gays represent to them; most don't even know any gays. When they flame the president, what they really hate is that the other party is in control. And when they hate me, what they really hate is what I stand for.

That's what I wrote about yesterday, with Cain and Abel. I don't believe Cain hated Abel;

he hated the fact that God approved of Abel and not him.

The defining characteristic of hate is extremism; when I hate someone, then everything he does is hateful. If I'm being reasonable, then I'll see some good even in people I don't like. That's why I'm embarrassed at the way so many of my brothers talk about Obama.

Because it hurts when the world treats me that way, just because I follow Jesus. But John says I shouldn't be surprised. They hate me because I remind them of Jesus, and that their behavior is sin. If they don't hate me, it's because I seem just like them. Which is worse?

Age-Old Message

"If I told you once, I've told you a thousand times!" My friend's mom used to say that, and then he'd say, under his breath, " . . . to never exaggerate." It's unusual for us actually to say something that often.

There is one thing, though, that any Christian has heard a thousand times or more: Love people. 1 John 3:11-12 says, "For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous."

God's been telling us from the very start of time to love each other. Cain is the poster child for what happens if we don't.  And he's the one who personifies the reason we often refuse to love: The other person makes us feel as bad as we really are.

I wonder how much of the anger I feel is really guilt? How much is rooted in the fact that I know that, at least to some extent, I'm wrong and it seems like the other person might expose that? Or maybe the other person just lives the way I know I should. It's easy to hate the popular group, to hate the one who's both beautiful and smart, the one who never is wrong. But maybe that's because I know if I tried harder that could be me; that person reminds me that I'm lazier than I should be.

But that's the thing about love: it's not about me. It's about the other person. To love is to forget about myself and think about someone else. Anger, jealousy, guilt, hurt - those are all emotions that center on me. Love is the one that doesn't. 

From the very beginning God knew that what would destroy me is my own self-worship, my perspective that all events are centered on me. By loving others, I negate my own self-destructive tendency, and I behave like God. It's how I was meant to be.

God's Seed

Sometimes, for me, the meaning of a verse hangs on the meaning of a word. For example, when John writes (1 John 3:9) "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God," my first reaction is this: Well, I sin so I must not be born of God. I think that because I default to a meaning of the word "continue" that means "if I ever do it again."

Not to continue to sin, though, doesn't mean never sinning. It can mean that if I sin I don't remain there, I feel guilt and return to the foot of the cross. Sin is intermittent, rather than constant. And John is saying here that once God's seed has been planted in me, that precious word of the Gospel, the faith in Jesus' blood that alone can save me, then it's not possible for me to be comfortable with sin. I might do it, but I won't continue in it. And I find that to be true. I don't remember who said it, but it resonates: "Going to church ruined me for proper sinning." 

That's why John can be so definite in the next verse, verse 10: "This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister." John isn't talking about the work of the person here, it's the work of God. It's not that I have become so good, it's that the very nature of God and the salvation He so graciously gives has this effect. 

God's seed has been planted, and it cannot fail to grow. What a comfort!

Jesus' Mission

When it comes to why Jesus came to earth, John is simple to the point of being blunt. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work."

That's the end of 1 John 3:8, and it couldn't be more clear. Whatever the devil has done in this world, Jesus will wreck. He's already done the work, he's just delaying the final destruction. And he's only doing that to give people time.

See, the rest of John's message in 1 John 3:7-8, the part right before, is just as simple and clear: "Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning." We - I - have what is called in my trade a binary choice. It's a fork in the road, two options only, doing what's right or doing what's sinful. If I choose what's sinful, then I become part of that devil's work that Jesus is out to destroy.

So our merciful God waits. He created time, so he has all of it there is. I'm the one who doesn't. I'm the one who'd better choose carefully.

No More Law-Breaking

I used to read a lot of Westerns, and one of my favorite themes was the outlaw who was trying to go straight.  Usually this was a good-hearted person who got in with a bad bunch, and now, later in life, wants a fresh start.

I like those stories, because, theologically, they are my story. John writes in 1 John 3:4-6,  ^"Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin.  No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him."

There I was, riding that outlaw trail, sinning whenever it suited me or best fulfilled my needs, and then Jesus caught me. With a big bounty on my head and a noose waiting me, my goose was cooked, but he showed me a better way, and then, when I pledged to follow him, he turned me loose.

So, now, no more law-breaking. I'm riding on the right side of the law now. I almost lost everything, so now I'm living for the One who spared me.

Child of the King!

1 John 3:1-3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

What great love, indeed! As if commuting my death sentence wasn't enough, God set me free, he let me out of the jail cell to walk the streets again. But even more than that, He adopted me and took me home to His mansion.

Because I'm still far closer to my life of capital offenses, I can't even imagine what this means; John says what I will be has not yet been made known. Except I do know, because scripture says so, that when Jesus comes back I'll be like him.

That's the gist of these verses, but they also contain a warning and a challenge. The warning, or maybe just an explanation, is that we'll be at odds with anyone who doesn't know God - "The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him." The challenge is to be as pure as Jesus is pure.

So what! The world might be hard on me, and my calling might be hard for me, but I'm a child of the King!