Are You Guilty of Murder?

"For this is the message you have heard from the beginning:  You should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother.  And why did he murder him?  Because his own actions were evil and his brother's righteous.  Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.  We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers.  Anyone who does not love remains in death.  Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him."  "  I John 3:11-15

I love the Word of God!  As strange as it may sound, I love it when during Bible study, or anointed preaching, the Lord convicts my heart in an area.  I enjoy learning how to please him, and what does not please him.  How can I be more like him, if I do not read the decrees, statutes and commandments laid out in the Bible?

As a young mother, I struggled with disciplining my children.  It broke my heart to  see them cry.  But as I studied the Bible I became more and more convinced that when I disciplined with dread, it was motivated by love.  When disciplining them eased the angst of my soul, I was in the flesh and not disciplining them in love.  Praise God!  He never disciplines us because he is fed up and is going to "show us a thing or two."  Rather, he disciplines us that we may live, that we may be blessed,  that we may enjoy his presence.

Loving others, forgiving, and resisting hatred is one of the hardest things we are called to do.  Why?  Because usually those we are tempted to hate or hold a grudge against is someone who has wronged us in some way.  The deeper the offence, the easier it is to being tempted to hate.

Dictionary.com defines hatred as "to dislike intensely or passionately to feel extreme aversion or hostility toward."  God said in today's verse that this is the same as murder.  Oh my!  That is a very strong whack on our spiritual posterior!

Is there anyone you intensely dislike?  I urge you to heed today's warning and begin to choose forgiveness.  Pray for the Lord to enable you to walk in love.  Today's passage indicates that clinging to this type of emotion separates us from the possibility of heaven, thus we have to purge any traces of it from us.

Dear Lord, please forgive me of anyone that I harbor wrong feelings toward.  I choose to let them go now and instead, I ask you to love them through me.  In Jesus' Name.  Amen.

Sherri