{"id":12433,"date":"2021-10-07T12:55:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-07T12:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pjhmail.wordpress.com\/?p=12433"},"modified":"2021-10-07T12:55:00","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T12:55:00","slug":"hating-sin-not-the-sinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/12433\/hating-sin-not-the-sinner\/","title":{"rendered":"Hating Sin, Not the Sinner?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pastor John:<\/span><\/p>\n

WoW! I really felt convicted by your words last night. How much I hate sin is directly correlates to how much I love Jesus!<\/span><\/p>\n

I know I was a sin tolerator before Jesus blessed me with holy Spirit, but I realized last night that that sin tolerator is not completely dead. While I thought I understood and lived by hating the sin and not the sinner, it was put on my heart last night that I really didn\u2019t hate the sin.\u00a0\u00a0My desire to not hate people \u2013 being a person who sometimes felt hated just because of the color of my skin \u2013 kept me from really hating sin.\u00a0\u00a0I could feel that I hadn\u2019t separated the two in my heart.\u00a0\u00a0Flashes of my responses to instances where my patient and loving husband had questioned me about my attitude towards certain sinful ways came before me.\u00a0\u00a0I knew I needed to repent for not hating sin enough!!!<\/span><\/p>\n

I pray that Jesus gives me a heart that knows how to hate sin with the same vigor with which He loves me!\u00a0\u00a0I can already feel a shift happening, and I pray that he allows me to want to want that shift more and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

Praise God for the fellowship I felt last night!\u00a0\u00a0I could feel the grief that the body felt when Sandy was lost.\u00a0\u00a0I feel that now for a few brothers and sisters, and I\u2019ve only been a part of the body for a few years.\u00a0\u00a0I\u2019ve said it before, but I\u2019ll say it again \u2013 I am so grateful Jesus put me in this body<\/span><\/p>\n

Now I\u2019m not so sure about this hate the sin not the sinner\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

I did a Google search on that, and it seems that sentiment is not biblical\u00a0\u00a0I read Proverbs 6:16, and if I am to hate the things God hates, then how could I not hate the person who has haughty eyes or a lying tongue, who kills, devises wicked plans, runs to evil, lies or sows discord among brothers?\u00a0\u00a0I doubt Jesus would want me to only hate the persons\u2019 eyes, tongue, hands, etc\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps where I\u2019ve been going wrong is in the belief that I should hate the sin and not the sinner?<\/span><\/p>\n

~Allison<\/span><\/p>\n

===========<\/span><\/p>\n

Hi, Allison.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Yours is a great testimony.\u00a0\u00a0I am glad you are still growing and learning.\u00a0\u00a0In Christ, that never stops!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

That phrase, \u201chate the sin, but not the sinner\u201d is OK.\u00a0\u00a0It certainly is not as bad as such Christian cliches as \u201cjoin the church of your choice\u201d and \u201cwe have to love everybody\u201d and \u201cwe have to forgive everybody\u201d, etc.\u00a0\u00a0God loved us when we were sinners, and sent His Son to die for us while we were in sin.\u00a0\u00a0So He certainly loved us, but not our sin.\u00a0\u00a0So, there is that.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

But we also have such scriptures as these:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo I not hate them, O Jehovah, who hate you, and abhor those who rise up against you?\u00a0\u00a0I hate them with perfect hatred.\u00a0\u00a0They are become my enemies\u201d (Ps. 139:21\u201322).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBraggarts will not stand in your sight.\u00a0\u00a0You hate all evildoers\u201d (Ps. 5:5).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lord tries the righteous, but the wicked man and him who loves violence, His soul hates\u201d (Ps. 11:5).<\/span><\/p>\n

So, there is that, too.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The simplest and safest thing for us to do is to live so that we give God no reason to hate us, and not to keep company with those who do provoke His wrath.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for writing.\u00a0\u00a0I hope that clears up what the Bible says about the issue of \u201chating the sin, but not the sinner\u201d.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Pastor John<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pastor John: WoW! I really felt convicted by your words last night. How much I hate sin is directly correlates to how much I love Jesus! I know I was a sin tolerator before Jesus blessed me with holy Spirit, but I realized last night that that sin tolerator is not completely dead. While I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-qa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12433"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}