15. Hatred
Hatred stirs up conflict but love covers all wrongs. Proverbs 10:12
The opposite of hatred is love.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34
After 40 circles around the sun, I feel like I have learned to love everyone. However, that doesn't make it easy to love everyone. Some are harder than others, Sometimes you just don't feel like loving. Looking deep within my heart, I still have to remember that it is usually the action that I hate about a person and not the actual person. I must remember that every person on this earth is a child of God, even if they are misguided and blinded by the Muslim extremist ideology, for example. Or sometimes it is just a kid in my class that is driving me crazy, but they are ALL children of God.
I think Martin Luther King, Jr. said it well when he said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. Romans 12:21
God is love and we love because God first loved us. (1 John 4:16, 19) And it's easy to love those who love me, but what credit do we get for that? We are called to do the hard thing--love everyone all the time.
We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. 1 John 5;19-20
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