Thinking today of Leviticus 19.17, it says,
you shall not hate your fellow countrymen in your heart.
You may surely reprove your neighbor,
but shall not incur sin because of him, Leviticus 19.17.
This sounds like a no matter what statement.
You shall not.
People do wrong things.
Bad things happen.
People make bad decisions.
A lot of times people are just doing
what they think they need to do to survive,
and they hurt somebody in the process.
No matter what they do,
no matter how bad it gets,
even if they do something directly to us,
we are not to hate them.
Here it says countrymen,
which for them meant fellow Israelites.
I don't think the context changes.
We are not to hate at all.
We should not.
He who hates his brother does not love God.
This could be in reference to you and your family.
Could be in reference to you
and the people who live near you.
It could be people in the church.
Sometimes people in the church do things
that are hurtful.
You cannot hate the church.
You cannot hate United States citizens.
You cannot hate your neighbors,
even people who live in our country
who are not citizens.
It does not matter.
We do not hate.
And let's be very clear about hate.
Hate is the opposite of love.
And so anything that's love
and then marred, altered, changed,
or different is hate.
If you don't love them,
if you're not willing to sacrifice for people,
then that's hate.
And we do not hate.
Help us today.
Lord, to stand firm for you
and love the people around us
and sacrifice as necessary
to make a difference in this world.
Thank you for sending your son Jesus to die for us.
We sure needed it.
We need it today.
We always will.
And we wanna represent you as best we know how.
Thanks for getting us through what we're going through.
In Jesus' name, amen.