Is Hatred Keeping You in the Dark?

I love you. I love you. I love you. That’s how I spent a good part of my second marriage – before my husband abandoned me for the last time. The words were meaningless; my heart was full of hatred. I pridefully bragged to the world how I walked in God’s light because I knew and followed the Lord while my husband lived in the dark. Some time after my husband left and I found myself living in the filthy basement of the house we rented with countless dogs facing multiple blizzards and total brokenness, God stripped me of most of what I ever loved and wanted and showed me the inside of my heart. He showed me I had a relationship with everything Christian (churches, pastors, prayer meetings, Christians, and the Bible), and no personal relationship with Him. My now ex-husband would tell you now he was living in the dark. But it was nothing like the darkness in which I lived, my heart hardened with such rage and hatred.

photo in background courtesy of pixabay.com

Who was I to dare say I knew the Lord. The Bible makes it clear that those who really know the Lord walk in the light – in His love, just like He walked upon this earth. Sure I loved my husband beneath all the sin in my heart. But the love, just like the Lord, were buried beneath all the hatred. Today, I have a beautiful and precious relationship with my ex-husband. Even more importantly, I have an amazing relationship with the Lord that is the most precious gift I have ever been given as a result of my salvation. I walk in the light now. And when I find sin darkening my heart once more, I repent as quickly as I see it and rejoice that God has called me into His marvelous light!

No matter how much and how often you have been telling the people in your life I LOVE YOU, are you walking in the light? Or is there hatred, bitterness, anger, pride, hurt, or anything else ungodly hiding inside your heart? If there is anything impure in your heart, repent of it and come back into the light. It is perfectly normal for us as humans to find ourselves struggling with the sins of anger, hurt, pride, hatred, etc. But what makes the difference between someone who truly knows the Lord and someone who does not is that the person who loves and knows Him will repent and purge himself or herself of the sin and turn unto the Lord. Walk in the light! Walk in the Lord! Walk in His love! And rejoice that through Christ who died on the cross for our sins that we are called out of the darkness and into His amazing light! 

1Jn 2:3  And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
1Jn 2:4  He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
1Jn 2:5  But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
1Jn 2:6  He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
1Jn 2:7  Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.
1Jn 2:8  Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.
1Jn 2:9  He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.
1Jn 2:10  He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.
1Jn 2:11  But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

1Pe 2:9  But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: 
1Pe 2:10  Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. 

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