Love and Hate

Many people that I have talked to, speak of love and hate as opposite from each other. My friends, it's just not true. Something is opposite love but it is not hate. What it is and why this is important for us to know, is the object of this section in our study of love.

We know that God is Love and so love is not something God created.

I John 4 8. He who does not love has not become acquainted with God [does not and never did know Him], for God is love.

God is not hate nor is hate something God created. God created angels, so they cannot "be" hate. It's true that the devil hates but he is not hate itself.

Man hates also, but God created man so he cannot be the hate itself, either.

DEFINITION: Hate (Hate), n. [OE. hate, hete, AS. hete; akin to D. haat, G. hass, Icel. hatr, SW. hat, Dan. had, Goth. hatis. Cf. Hate, v.]

Strong aversion coupled with desire that evil should befall the person toward whom the feeling is directed; as exercised toward things, intense dislike; hatred; detestation; -- opposed to love. "For in a wink the false love turns to hate." Tennyson.

Hate is found in both of these things that God (Love) created, but neither are the hate itself. Hate is nothing more than the fruit of choice. The power to choose between love and hate was given to both creations by the creator, in hopes of producing "real love". Remember, if you make it to love only, it's NOT really love at all.

Already, we can begin to see that hate is something lesser than Love and therefore less superior, and less powerful. And while hate may be set against (opposed to) Love, it does not set opposite of love. Let me try to give you a picture.

Imagine Love at one end of a long table. Moving down both sides of the table are the things God created, Angles that worship God and serve His purpose on one side and Human Beings that worship and serve Him on the other side of the table.

Moving still further down the table from love are Angles and Humans that choose to hate God and do not serve Him.

But what sets in the chair at the far end of the table (opposite of Love) is the absence of Love. No one and no thing is in that chair yet. I don't know that without the help of the Holy Spirit that we can quite wrap our minds around this, but the opposite of Love is NO Love.

No one is in that chair. In fact, lets forget the example of table and chairs now because the truth is that the place that sets opposite from Love is a place where Love does not exist and that place is called Hell. Hell is not spatial separation from God, it cannot be because we know that God is omnipresent. However, Hell is separation from the comfortable presence of God, His Love. It is the unshielded experience of the presence of God in his holiness, and the absence of his mercy and grace.

Why is this important to know?

1 John 4:20 If anyone says, I love God, and hates (detests, abominates) his brother [ in Christ], he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, Whom he has not seen.

There is so much hate in this world. If you count all current conflicts where hostilities are still present, and conflicts that have ceased hostilities but are still unresolved there are approx 41. This includes the obvious conflicts in Afganistan and Iraq, as well as conflicts like the Korean war that have cease fires in place but are still unresolved and the 2 sides still stare at each other over a gun barrel. The divorce rate in America is 50%. Murder, rape, abortion,... The amount of hate in this world seems to have no end. In the war between love and hate, many people fear that hate is winning. Sadly, there are some who believe it will win.

John 1 1. IN THE beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. 2. He was present originally with God. 3. All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being. 4. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. 5. And the Light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it [put it out or absorbed it or appropriated it, and is unreceptive to it].

From this verse we see, First, that hate was nowhere around in the beginning. This alone, points out that love and hate cannot set equally opposit each other. And Secound, we see that in the description of light and darkness the AWESOME power of one over the other.

As I said earlier, hate is less superior, less powerful and while hate may be set against Love, it hasn't much time left. It's on a short leash. It's time to do what it wants to do has always been measured presicely by God and that time is nearly up.

Revelation 22:3 There shall no longer exist there anything that is accursed (detestable, foul, offensive, impure, hateful, or horrible). But the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His servants shall worship Him [pay divine honors to Him and do Him holy service]

This is Good News, my Friends. Listen to the incredible strength that Love has.

I Corithians 13 4. Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily. 5. It is not conceited (arrogant and inflated with pride); it is not rude (unmannerly) and does not act unbecomingly. Love (God's love in us) does not insist on its own rights or its own way, for it is not self-seeking; it is not touchy or fretful or resentful; it takes no account of the evil done to it [it pays no attention to a suffered wrong]. 6. It does not rejoice at injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. 7. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances, and it endures everything [without weakening]. 8. Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy (the gift of interpreting the divine will and purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth]. 9. For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect). 10. But when the complete and perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).

Oh, my friends, I hope your "feeling lucky" today, hehe. I hope that you trust that, in the war between love and hate, LOVE does not fail and will never fade. Amen?

I Love you.