“A time to love and a time to hate…...”
Ecclesiastes usually leaves me puzzled. I came across this verse today and decided to give it some thought. This is not the first time that I have written about this verse, and this is probably not the last time. Following is what I got from it this time: First, Solomon wrote that “there is a time to love.” There is no puzzle here. In fact, the New Testament reminds us that we are to love people whether they are lovable or not. Now, that is not difficult to understand, but it is difficult to do. My mind went to 1 John 4:20-21, which is one of my “go to” verses on this subject: “We love (God) because He first loved us. 21. If a man says, I love God, and hate his brother, he is a liar, for he who loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen.” The “brother” here is simply another person. These two verses are why I make every effort to love people who are not lovable. If you are not making the effort, you should, because there is always “a time to love.” Second, Solomon wrote that there is “a time to hate.” I want to share my thoughts on this puzzling verse: There is always a time to hate Satan and his demons. He never means any good for us and will ruin us if we let him. There are people who claim to love Satan, but they are sadly confused. We find Jesus’ opinion about him in John 8:44: “He is a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” There is always a time to hate sin. We really need to hate our prevailing sins. These might not seem like much to us but they are important to Jesus. That is why it is so important to seek His forgiveness on a daily basis. Sin can never bring good things into our lives. I’m not guessing about this, I know this from experience. You can say the same thing if you will think about it. There is always a time to hate the evil deeds that people do. This does not mean that we should hate the people, but to hate their deeds. Isis comes to mind. I honestly pray for Jesus to enable me to love them, but I do honestly hate what they do. I constantly pray for their conversion. You probably get my point: It ain’t easy but it is the Christian thing to do. Let’s pray to love people and hate the things that we should hate. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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