Independence Day - Love What God Loves. Hate What God Hates.
As we celebrate our nation’s independence and freedom, we are reminded that with our freedoms we have daily choices to make. God speaks clearly across the Scriptures about what He loves and what He hates. He warns of the danger of giving lip-service to God while loving ourselves or the world more than Him (Mark 7:6). May we use our independence to choose, as individuals and as a nation, things that are pleasing to our Creator and oppose the things that God speaks against.
Proverbs 3:33 “The LORD’s curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous.”
1. God Loves True Worship. God Hates False Worship.
Idolatry is when we pursue and prioritize anything above God. While Satan and the world appeal to our fleshly desires, lasting and pure pleasure is ultimately found in an intimate, loving relationship with Jesus. May we give more time, attention, and honor to Jesus above anything or anyone else.
James 4:6 “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
2. God Loves Humility. God Hates Pride.
Pride is the root of all sin as it seeks independence from God and His authority. It was Satan’s downfall and it ours as well. Pride is self-focus and ultimately self-worship. Pride is expressed and seen in a multitude of ways. May we hear God’s loving warnings of the seriousness of self-worship as it leads to Hell.
2 Thessalonians 2:9–10 “the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”
3. God Loves Truth. God Hates Deception.
Satan is the “father of lies” (John 8:44) and “the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9). May we examine what we hear and believe by searching the Scriptures for the truth. May we submit to God by forming our opinions to be in line with God’s eternal law.
Isaiah 61:8 “For I the LORD love justice; I hate robbery and wrong”
4. God Loves Good. Good thoughts, good-doers, good actions. God Hates Evil. Evil thoughts, evil-doers, evil actions.
Our choices matter. May we “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5) in such a way that our mind, heart, actions, and words are full of righteousness. God, his moral standards, and His followers are hated by the world since Jesus speaks so clearly that the world’s “works are evil” (John 7:7). May we listen to our loving Heavenly Father so it may go well for us in this life and the next.
Hebrews 13:4 “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”
5. God Loves Sexual Purity. God Hates Sexual Immorality.
Our world is overflowing with sexual deviance from God’s plan for sexual activity. God’s plan for sexual intimacy is good, being reserved within the bounds of biblical marriage (one man, one woman, for life) for procreation, pleasure, as a picture of God’s glory, and as an escape from temptation (1 Corinthians 7).
1 Corinthians 6:9–10 “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
We discover what God loves and hates in the Bible. Let us confess and repent where we have failed. May we daily read or listen to the Scriptures and come together in a local, biblically-faithfully church each week. Jesus loved and died for us while we were His enemies (Romans 5:6-10). Let us use our freedoms to step towards what God loves and step away from what God hates.
Philippians 4:8–9 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”