If you don’t believe me that you should hate this, believe God! Because not only does God hate this, but God tells us to hate this! So we need to hate it! It can be summed up in a single word. EVIL! We are to HATE, or abhor, EVIL!
“… Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.” Romans 12:9 NKJV
In modern day America, “abhor” is not the most commonly used word. But hate is a word we all understand. And it’s a really strong word. God is not saying we should slightly dislike evil. Not that we should have a mild distaste for it. We are to HATE it. In another word, we are to DESPISE evil.
Now I don’t think God is simply referring to hating all the evil in this world which of course we should do. I believe He is telling us to hate our own evil! To hate our own wrongdoing! To hate our own sin! And to hate the evil we are tempted to enter into, to engage in, to participate in, to get involved with, etc.
What else does God tell us in this verse? To CLING to GOOD!
For those of us holding on for dear life to sin, i.e. to evil, we need to TURN AWAY FROM SIN. GET RID OF SIN. PURGE THE SIN FROM OUR LIVES. LET IT GO. LEAVE IT BEHIND. THROW IT AWAY. BE DONE WITH IT!
And we need to humbly cry out to God for forgiveness, to TURN TO GOD, to CLING to GOD and to THE BIBLE and to GOOD. To HOLD ON FOR DEAR LIFE to the Lord Jesus Christ and to God’s will for our lives!
You who are holding on for dear life to a particular sin, please stop trying to excuse it. Please stop justifying it. Please stop trying to hide it. Please stop loving and enjoying it. Please stop depending on it. Hate evil. Hate your sin. The final destination of sin is death, hell, and the lake of fire forever apart from God! Repent, repent, repent! Repent and turn to the Lord!
Jesus Christ is Lord, He died on the cross to pay our sin penalty and was raised from the dead. He is the only way to heaven. He is the only path to a forever relationship with God instead of hell and the lake of fire forever. Sin separates us from God. We need to quit clinging to evil and turn to Jesus and cling to Him!
Believe in Jesus as Lord, believe in His death and resurrection, turn to God and His ways, receive His forgiveness, the promise of a relationship with Him on earth and forever in heaven, and the Holy Spirit will come to live in you.
Cry out to God to forgive you and to set you free and give you the strength to live free from the evil you have been holding onto. Reach out to Jesus’ followers for love, support, help, prayer, and encouragement in following God and clinging to good no longer clinging to evil. Turn, turn, turn to the Lord, AMEN!
If you already are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and are struggling with a particular sin, cry out to God to deliver you and reach out to His followers to help you and pray for you and encourage you and support you as you learn to hate the evil and cling to the Lord and to good!
Let us all, each and every one of us, turn, turn, to turn to the Lord and hate and leave all evil behind! Hallelujah! Amen!
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6 NKJV
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9 NKJV
“Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men also, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.”” Jude 1:14-15 NKJV