Daily Devotion

July 29, 2006

Psalms 106:10 And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.

There is the kind of hate that we receive from people because of their vindictive spirit. We have wronged them and they are hurt, because they do not know how to suffer themselves to be defrauded, they do not know how to take wrong (1 Corinthians 6:7).

There is also the hate of people who are just plain hateful. They are self-righteous, contentious, and they do not like anything that does not project their personal views and opinions. This is close to the hate of religious people who in their zealous efforts to obey the Lord’s injunction to hate evil (Psalms 97:10), look at people in a critical way, hating them for their weaknesses instead of hating the sin within them and loving them with the love of Jesus Christ who sees beyond our weaknesses.

There is also political and ethnic hatred where we are hated because we belong to a different race or culture; where people persecute and set us aside because we are not part of their cultural clique. We see this happen throughout world history, a history that is rich in religious and cultural wars, and even cases of ethnic cleansing. Christian kids are also targeted by the “cool cats” of this generation, put aside as “uncool” because they do not want to yield to evil peer pressure.

On the other hand, the child of God, regardless of his cultural or social background, from the moment he is saved, incurs the hate of the very enemy of God. From the moment we invite Jesus to live in us, we represent everything Satan hates. From birth control to abortion, war, car accidents, ethnic cleansing, bad company, the devil will use everything in his arsenal of evil to physically kill as many Christians as he can, or even more so, killing them spiritually by rendering them useless by leading them to live a life in compromise of their Christian values.

We need to be aware of the devices of the evil one who as a roaring lion walks about seeking to devour us (1 Peter 5:8), but most of all we need to be aware of the One who from the beginning redeems us from the hands of him that hates us.

Matthew 10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Patrick Lumbroso
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