Adamant With Lisa BevereSample

When we receive God’s love, the most natural and necessary response is for us to give love. We should love fearlessly, triumphantly, and endlessly. The true evidence of someone who knows they are loved is that they love well. 

God doesn’t have love; He is love. Love is His very nature. And because God is love, you cannot stop Him from loving you. His love is invincible and immovable, unshaken by your ebbs and flows. 

But because God loves everyone, He cannot love everything. Since God is adamant in love, He must also be adamant in hate. 

This may seem like a contradiction at first glance, but that is only because our culture has idolized love. We know that God is love, but have we made our idea of love god? 

The truth is, God hates what unmakes love. He hates what tears apart those He loves. This is why God must hate what distorts our identity.

Scripture also tells us God hates: everything that compromises justice and truth, when widows and orphans are oppressed, the abuse of the elderly and the neglect of family, what perverts His goodness and taints His gifts, when love gets twisted into selfishness and friends become enemies, what changes His image and distorts ours, when evil is called good and the innocent are killed, and when arrogance and pride degrade us. In short, God hates all that undermines love, for everything that debases love debases us. 

We cannot have genuine love if we “love everything.” God is adamant in both love and hate, so we must learn to love what God loves and hate what He hates. 

What are some ways our culture has made its idea of love god? God loves everyone, but He does not love everything. What does this truth look like in your life?