"He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him." 1 John 2:9-10
This passage highlights a truth that we ignore too many times: hatred is a gateway to many other sins.
Just at the very surface, we know that Jesus has commanded us to love one another. It's the second of two commandments, and it seems to be a continuation of the first commandment - to love God. We cannot walk in the light of Jesus if we are disregarding a key commandment of his. It's very important because we need to be able to show our love in every aspect of our lives, not just our devotion behind a closed door in our houses.
Going deeper into this notion, we find that love is great because it removes any opportunity for stumbling from our lives. We wander around, hoping to have a cure all for our problems in our lives. Yet, here is one that is truly a solution: love. When we hate, we put away the love that we have been shown by God. Then, we start allowing our minds and hearts to be filled with feelings that grow in us. These are feelings of pride, that we are always in the right; fear, that others will be better than us; greed, that we may be better than everybody else we encounter; anger, murdering everybody we know in our mind, if not in real life. All of these feelings will grow until we have fallen so many times that we could convince ourselves that we are no longer humans made in God's image, but creatures of the Devil.
That's not the direction we need to go in. Love is not always difficult. If we have attached ourselves so much to the pride that compels us to hold grudges that it makes forgiveness or love difficult, then we need to evaluate our relationship with God. We cannot be walking in the darkness of hatred and claim to be following Jesus. We need to let go of all of these negative feelings so that we can head towards Jesus without stumbling blocks in our way. When we truly accept the love that God has for us, then we will be able to continue in the light of Christ.
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