Seek, Love, Hate January 8, 2016

Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the Lord, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph.
Amos 5:14-15 ESV

I remember back Dr. John Marshall was interviewing/auditioning for the pastorship at Second Baptist Church.  He made a statement to the effect that he preached verse by verse through the Bible.  His reasoning for this was to make sure he did not end up repeating reworked sermons from years past and did not return too often to pet themes and personal peeves.  I have found now that this blog is entering its seventh year, I occasionally get a de'ja'vu feeing about a particular entry.  Today is one of those days.  While the verses from Amos might not have made an appearance, I know I have touched on teh topic previously.  But since I don't have the encyclopedic knowledge or self-discipline of Dr. Marshall, I will forge ahead.

Seek, love, and hate--three intentional choices we can make.  Seek and love good.  Hate evil.  The Christian life is one of choices we make.  We have options.  We have alternatives.  We have discretion.

Each time a child in my office tells me that they pushed a classmate because, "he made me do it."  Or "I couldn't help it" is offered as an excuse for an unkind word spoken to a friend.  A punch to the arm was "just an accident".  Countless times I have had the conversation about choices, consequences, and selecting a different course of action in the future.

While there are some unknowns or gray areas in our Christian walk, let's face it, many of us are not doing all that we know God would have us do.  That television show we would be shocked to see shown on the large screen at church flickers on our 50" screen in the basement each week.  The joke we tell in the breakroom we would never dream of sharing in our small group on Sunday morning.

Let's start truly loving good, hating evil, and seeking good intentionally and consistently.