Seems to me that we throw that word around way to easily. We hate this celebrity, we hate that team. Hate was never a term that we allowed to be used very often in our household, but according to the Bible, there is a proper use of the term.
Jude 1:23
"but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh."
So when is it OK to hate and what does it mean? The word hate here means a radical, violent aversion; finding something abhorrent, repugnant, or absolutely disgusting. In other words, you have such strong feelings about something that it is nauseating.
Jude is telling us that there are some things that we should hate one of which is a "garment" defiled by the flesh. The word garment here refers to "underwear." It was common practice to change your outer garment for events, and to simply look more presentable but the underwear would be changed less frequently, and while you make look nice on the outside, you and God know the filth that is really under the garments.
The word "defile" has to do with "permeate." Here is what Jude is saying and implying. We may look good on the outside, but if we don't find sin absolutely disgusting and have a violent aversion to it, like stinking underwear it will eventually permeate everything, whether we want it to, or even notice it, everything around us will be impacted.
We are to love God with everything that is within us, but we must also choose to not allow sin to have any place in our lives even coming to the realization that we are to absolutely hate it. We are not to allow it to have any place in our lives or we may not notice it, but others around us will certainly know we stink. So don't stink...hate sin:)
No comments:
Post a Comment