Graphic from Dustin Beasley’s blog, Endure Life
SCRIPTURE: Proverbs 6:16-23 The Message
Here are six things God hates, and one more that he loathes with a passion:
- eyes that are arrogant
- a tongue that lies
- hands that murder the innocent
- a heart that hatches evil plots
- feet that race down a wicked track
- a mouth that lies under oath
- a troublemaker in the family
Good friend, follow your father’s good advice; don’t wander off from your mother’s teachings. Wrap yourself in them from head to foot; wear them like a scarf around your neck. Wherever you walk, they’ll guide you; whenever you rest, they’ll guard you; when you wake up, they’ll tell you what’s next. For sound advice is a beacon, good teaching is a light, moral discipline is a life path.
OBSERVATION
The seven items on the list are destructive choices. They bring separation, pain, and injustice. God offers us the way of goodness and life. Following this path brings direction and protection.
APPLICATION
The first two vows of the United Methodist Baptismal and Membership Liturgy
1. Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin?
2. Do you accept the freedom and power that God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves?
Ephesians 4:26-27 NRSV
Be angry but do not sin;
do not let the sun go down on your anger,
and do not make room for the devil.
I am very comfortable with the God of grace, mercy and love. So much so that when a friend in my Bible study class asked me about this passage I didn’t know what to say. God is love and yet God hates. God hates not only evil actions but God also hates people who choose them. How can this be?
Humans can love and hate at the same time, but our hate usually leads to sin. Prejudice, sectarianism, gossip, judging others, labeling, bullying, violence. Hate is not a healthy or faithful option for me.
There is such a thing as the wrath of God. God cries out that oppressors be stopped, that violence end. The cry [in Psalm 137] is not literally to kill babies, but to utterly destroy the offspring of greed and exploitation, to end the line of succession of violence and abuse, to chop off the family tree of hate and fear and selfishness. The change is built on love of the oppressors— but God’s merciful justice requires that some things get destroyed. As Revelation 11:18 says, “Your wrath has come, and the time… for destroying those who destroy the earth.” – Steve Garnaas-Holmes, About That Psalm
God is without sin. Always. God can love and hate without sin. Maybe I’ve tried to box God in to my limitations. Scriptures like this are a reminder that God is greater. God isn’t an enabler who tolerates destructive choices passively. To love means to take a stand. Evil and foolish choices have serious consequences, the main one being they put us in opposition to God. God is good, holy and just and thus opposes all that is not. The wonder and grace of God is that God continues to extend the offer of reconciliation and new life to the opposition.
A God small enough to fit inside your head is not big enough to meet your needs.
– Chuck Missler
PRAYER: Your Word, Your Way
Lord God, help me love you
All of you
I want to know you, follow your path
I want to be wise
Far from foolishness and evil
Help me love your word
All of it
I want to cherry pick passages
Box you in to what is comfortable for me
What I understand and want
Fashion you in my image
You are greater
Your thoughts are greater
Your greatness draws me close
Your greatness weakens my knees in awe, respect and worship
Save me from extremes
too soft, too hard
too tolerant, too legalistic
too much love, too much law
too much me
Help me love you
your word
your way
Always
Amen
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God in a Box graphic courtesy of Dustin Beasley’s blog, Endurelife
This devotion is based on the SOAP Method for keeping a spiritual journal, as taught at New Hope Christian Fellowship in Hawaii. For more information on this simple and powerful way of engaging the Word of God, please click here
Prayer: Your Word, Your Way © 2013 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia.
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