“The person who loves God cannot help Loving every man as himself, even though he is grieved by the passions of those who are not yet purified. But when they amend their lives, his delight is indescribable and knows no bounds.
“A soul filled with thoughts of sensual desire and hatred is unpurified.
“If we detect any trace of hatred in our hearts against any man whatsoever for committing any fault, we are utterly estranged from love for God, since love for God absolutely precludes us from hating any man.” ~The Philokalia
Loving God
Many find it hard to accept that they cannot love God, yet also hate men who do evil. This actually seems contradictory to them, but it isn’t. What it really means is that we must love Man as a whole, and not pick and choose to love only a select few. We can, of course, be selective in our friends, and in our community members. But even those we consider too evil or too sick to be part of our society must be loved. There are a number of reasons why this must be our attitude.
Live Like God
I have heard people say that God would never reject any of His children. They say that if the person is repentant, God will always accept him back.
Yet those same people often think it is acceptable for them to treat other quite differently. If somebody offends them, or does them a wrong, they will often hold a grudge forever. Even when the person repents, they often refuse to accept the apology.
If God behaved like that, no one would ever get to return to Heaven. We have all sinned at one time or another. We have all done something wrong toward another. Our duel nature makes it impossible for us to be good all the time. So we have to accept that other make mistakes just as we do.
Do As We Wish Others to Do
Many people claim to follow this Golden Rule, at least most of the time. Yet they will happily punish others for things they themselves have done. In fact, psychologists tell us that often times the faults we see in others are those we see in ourselves. The gay basher who would go so far as to kill a person for being homosexual often has homosexual feelings himself. The militant atheist who wants to deny rights to the religious actually fears, in many cases, that they will convince him. Likewise, the religious fanatic who treats those not of his faith as scum is often having a crisis of faith.
The Power to Control
Another reason to love each other is to defy the power brokers, both human and demonic. The human ones love it when we turn on each other as then we are ignoring them while they pick our pockets and rape our spouses. The demons like it, because when we blame people for evil, we are generally ignoring their contribution.
Loving God, Loving All
Not only do we have to love other individuals, even when they do wrong, but groups as well.
We can’t hate another religion simply because it isn’t ours. And when a person from a particular church or faith commits a crime, we can’t then treat all people of that faith as criminals. I doubt that you can find a singe religion or church that doesn’t have criminals or evil people among it’s members. Or at least people who occasionally commit an evil deed. That doesn’t make the religion evil.
There are a few exceptions such as cults that sacrifice animals as a religious practice. Yet we still must show love for the individuals in this cult who have been misled and pray they be awakened and saved.
We hate big corporations for doing things like poisoning the environment and paying senior executive ridiculous amounts of money while the actual workers get barely enough to live on. But they do such things only because governments, shareholders, and their Board of Directors approve it. Change the governments, the boards, and the attitude of profit at all cost, and the corporations will change. So hate what they do to people, don’t hate the corporation itself.
Foreign counties are also often on our list of things to hate. They do things we don’t like, they live in a strange part of the world that we have never visited, they speak a strange language, and even dress different. They must be evil. This attitude prevents us from learning, and often these people from other countries could teach us much if we chose to listen. And when some other countries truly display evil, it is usually not the nation itself, but the government in it that is corrupt and evil. In many of these counties that so-called “Good Christians” hate, people still help one another, care for one another, and protect one another. They are often more Christian in their behavior than the ones who proudly wear the label, but fail in following the teachings of Christ. They may be Loving God more than we are.
Summary
So we can’t pick and chose who to love and who to hate. That is exactly what the demons do. We can’t even pick which species to love. Dogs, cats, cows and turnips are all living being and need to be treated with respect and love. It is hard to love them, yet eat them, but perhaps one day soon we will learn that we don’t need to eat other beings anymore. We may soon be able to love all and live in Light and that Divine Light from God will be all the nourishment we will need. Loving God can make it happen.
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