UBC Wed For Life

This month we celebrated Veteran’s Day. The day is meant to celebrate the work and lives of those that have served in the U.S. military. The need for a military in this world is unfortunate and undeniable. Conflict and violence have been a part of the human experience for nearly as long as humanity has existed. In the Bible, it goes as far back as the story of Cain and Abel, where Cain slew his brother out of jealousy and envy. While wars may be fought between nations and not individuals, the truth is they often begin because of the same things that cause petty fights between people. Greed, jealousy, hatred or to put it all more simply, sin. Our sinful nature doesn't just put us at odds with God. A lot of the time, it puts us at odds with each other, and all too often we allow our conflicts to devolve into the worse actions and people die as a result.  God hates violence. The violent nature of people was what angered God enough to want to destroy most of humanity.  God

God is a loving creator and ruler. As Believers, that is central to our desire to follow him. It’s something the Bible tells us pretty specifically. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. - 1 John 4:16-18 God is the source of love and we are instructed to follow his example and also be loving. That being the case, the idea that God can hate may seem like a contradiction. However, under careful consideration, most Believers should find that there is no conflict in this revelation. After all, we all understand that God hates sin. We’ve all heard the saying “God hates the sin not the sinner.” That sounds nice, but is it really true? Does God really not hate sinners? Like most popular sayings attributed to the Bible, that saying is not a