http://www.hope1032.com.au/
LifeWords
21/6/2010

LOVE AND HATE
Read 1 John 3:11-15

11 This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 We must not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and killed his brother. And why did he kill him? Because Cain had been doing what was evil, and his brother had been doing what was righteous. 13 So don’t be surprised, dear brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.

14 If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. 15 Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.

Believe it or not there are some similarities between love and hate. If we hate someone we are consumed by them. Those who hate thrive on the prospect of expressing what they feel to that other person. Hatred stirs up memories of the other person which linger on and shape our lives. The big difference being, of course, that hatred hollows us out rather than fulfils us. To love someone is to be enriched by the encounter. To hate someone is to be diminished by the encounter.

In this passage, John puts it very bluntly. If we go on hating people we show we have no place in God’s family. Conversely, love for others is evidence of family membership. Not that love is the means by which we enter that family: it is the necessary outcome of the faith that does make us members. In this John echoes Jesus who said that love of fellow Christians was to be the mark of his disciples.

John draws on the example of Cain and Abel. Cain hated Abel because Abel was intent on being godly. Someone like that is a big threat to someone else who wants to be ungodly. Cain’s hatred led to murder. Though John points out that all hatred is essentially murderous. We wish the person didn’t exist, we don’t treat them or think of them as human. In contrast, love enriches the lives of others and our own as well.

Love and hate are both consuming passions. One creates, the other destroys.

Blessings
David Reay LifeWords http://www.hope1032.com.au/