post-classroom thoughts

I feel very strongly today that God loves everyone. God does not hate anyone. I know this runs contrary to specific verses that say God hates certain people, or people who do specific things. I think those verses are wrong, or hopefully just misunderstood. God hating anyone runs contrary to what I know and believe and experience about him, and it runs contrary to what Jesus tells us to do. Jesus can't tell us to love our enemies and then say that God hates his enemies, or hates anyone. And when Jesus tells us to love our enemies, he says this in the specific context that we are to be perfect as God is perfect. That is what I hold to, that perfection does not involve hatred for others, that loving God does not involve hatred for others.

I also feel that if God hates sin, it is because of his love for us. That should always be the context for viewing sin, as something which is irrelevant next to the love and mercy of God. Then again, mercy is only relevant in the context of our errors, in the context of our needing mercy. That's not the point. The point is that God's love is incomparably bigger than any wrong that I could do. This is also how I am coming to view sin. I hate it because of what it does to me, and what it does to my friends. Because of how it harms them and harms me. And the reason I hate that is because I love my friends. And if I can love my friends in spite of their sins, God can certainly do the same and love anyone in spite of their sins. Anyone. How petty it would be for me to hate anyone because of their sins. The same goes for God. Love is the context for viewing sin. I think that with love our view towards the sins of others (and maybe our own) is grief, and not disgust.