06/19/2025
Are we confused when asked to both love and hate those around us? Let's take a few moments and consider our own lives and the faith we proclaim. Let’s consider what it means when we are told to hate and love our families in various passages of scripture and then come to realize that we are also a family in our church.
“When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." He said to him, "Feed my lambs."”
John 21:15 ESV
Several years ago, I was sitting quietly in my mother's living room. I traveled a great distance to be there and after what had been a wonderful visit, I was preparing to return to my home in Tennessee. I came to Virginia to celebrate her 92nd birthday with the rest of my family but found that I actually needed to be there for various other reasons as well... all of which had to do with loving her.
My mother, like me, and each member of my family, was flawed in many ways, but nonetheless, I loved her, them, and myself. I overlook these things in us because they aren't who we are, but what we are dealing with in our lives, and what we have gone through. Jesus tells us something that at first blush seems contrary to one of the Ten Commandments when He says...
“"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”
Luke 14:26-27 ESV
Some read this in consternation, they ask themselves how He could say such a thing, but if you have ever looked at your own family, and each individual in detail, you suddenly come to the realization that there are flaws that they are dealing with... just as, if you are honest with yourself, you see that there are flaws in your own self that must be dealt with too. We are told to hate, but only those things that separate us from God; those things which keep us from eradicating the faults in our own lives and faiths. We are not meant to hate unconditionally.
“"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Exodus 20:12 ESV
We are told to honor our father and mother, we are told to love our neighbor, but then we are told to hate these things. It seems like we are placed in a quandary, but in fact we are being shown that our lives are complex collages of both good and evil, righteousness and sin, and that they are holiness coupled with everyday humanity. This is our battle, and this is the struggle we find ourselves in when either loving or hating Christianity, and families. Each day we are trying as we might to separate our love of Jesus Christ from the often-flawed way we are living for Him.
“We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”
Romans 6:6 ESV
Jesus didn't ask us to do very many things, but He did ask us to follow Him, and He asked us to remember Him in communion... well you get the picture. Jesus loves us, and He loves the church, but He also hates certain things about us just as He has told us to do with our own earthly families. I spent four days with my family, and in those few days I showed them my frailties, shortcomings and flaws... right alongside my faith and great victories. They have done the same with me, and I am now joining together with them as we detest our failures and sins while rejoicing in our faith and accomplishments. In the end, we still love one another dearly and can never separate ourselves from family in that regard, but we also hate the flaws we each have. I pray that we will each continue working to remove them from ourselves and to love one another more perfectly as we do. Is your family like mine?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for family. I thank you for your Son Jesus Christ and the sins of mine that He bears. I know Father that in that moment, when He took on my sin flawed life, that you found hate for those things in Him. I am so unworthy, but in Him I see the love that is asked of each of us; we are led to love Him as you do... not so much in what He did each day of His life, but in who He is at His very human and spiritual core and heart. Holy Father, Jesus is my savior, my Lord, my Friend, and my brother... He makes me family with Himself and you, and in as much He teaches me about the complex love and hate that a family is comprised of as it confronts sin and holds tight to the pursuit of righteousness. In this way Holy Father, never let me confuse my practice of Christianity with the love I feel for my Brother Jesus Christ. Help me to love my brothers and sisters in Christ, despite their brokenness and sinful flaws, help me to love, transcend, and defeat in me, those things that Jesus asked me to hate about them as my family, but even more than this, help me to love myself as I deal with my own brokenness and sin. Keep my eyes fixed on your Son Jesus and not the signage along the road towards eternity as I follow Him towards you. Abba, know that I love you with all my heart, mind, soul and strength… You are perfect in every way, and I love you without the reservation of sin… I love you more than both my earthly and spiritual families, more than the sin that Jesus took on to redeem me and the world, and more that the practice of my faith which I struggle each day to perfect. Holy, Holy, Holy, are you my God who loves me and yet hates sin. Holy are you who has separated me from my sins through the blood of Jesus Christ and chosen not to remember them. Help me Father as I struggle with the mysteries, and hard things, of my belief and faith. Lead me ever onward and show me how to overcome them, show me how to defeat my sinfulness in all its forms. In this way I will shout praises unto you and give you all the glory and honor for each victory you have won in me.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah! Amen!
“but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
Isaiah 59:2 ESV
“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,”
John 1:12 ESV
“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV
“as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us.”
Psalm 103:12 ESV
Rich Forbes