Hate and words that describe hate such as detest, abhor, abominate, and loathe are strong words that we shouldn’t permit to roll out of our mouths nor allow to ever mortgage our hearts. Now, here’s where things can get a little slippery. Proverbs 8:13 says, “All who fear the LORD will hate evil. Therefore, I hate pride and arrogance, corruption and perverse speech.” I’ve heard people (including myself) use the phrase, ‘I love what God loves and hate what He hates’ to justify fostering an ill disposition against someone that have hurt them. But, what I and many others forget to consider is that God was referring to sin in the above passage not people. Miséō (mis-eh’-o) is the transliterated Hebrew word for hate and it’s definition is acutely identically to the terms listed above however, on a comparative basis it also means to love someone or something less than someone (something) else. With that said, do you really think God is inciting that we should hate to people or miséō (hate) the evil things people do?! When hurt turns to hate we must remember the first and greatest commandment is to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:28-34). We are also instructed in Matthew 5:43-48 to, “Love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, that we may be children of our Father in heaven.” In the wake of all this craziness, we must be resolved to walk in love by faith and ask the Holy Spirit to help us to dissolve any form of anger or resentment we might have knowingly and unknowingly fostered towards others. We mustn’t dwell on the awful atrocities we’ve seen demonstrated across our nation because it only makes matters worse. We must choose the latter and not the former through forgiveness and reconciliation.
Holding a grudge and negativity is basically holding hatred in your heart and God makes it clear, if you won’t forgive others, He won’t forgive you. As I mentioned before Dr. Martin Luther King said, ‘Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” We do have a choice in matter but, the person who chooses to store hate in their heart has also chosen to walk in darkness. 1 John 4:19-20 says, “We love because God first loved us. Whoever says, “I love God,” but hates his brother is a liar. The one who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love the God whom he has not seen.”