How Do We View Sin?
For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil dwells with You
Psalm 5:4
How do you think God views sin, after he sacrificed his own Son on the cross to destroy our sins? God hates sin because it is the opposite of his nature, just as Satan is the exact opposite of God’s nature. Can God have perfect love without total hatred of sin?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 10:27). Can we love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, strength, and minds if we don’t hate sin? Satan tempts us to sin, because sin separates us from God. The more we hate sin, the more we overcome sin, and the closer we are to our Lord.
We are spiritual warriors, meaning we overcome the power of Satan’s temptations. If we view every temptation as leading to sin, and we hate sin, we will have the power to overcome. Everyone born of God overcomes the world (1 John 5:4). If God hates sin, shouldn’t we hate sin?
How do we develop a hatred for sin? The more of God’s love we have in our hearts, the more we care about people, and the more we hate sin. When we have a close friend or relative who refuses Christ, we know Satan has a hold on that person through feeding lies to him or her. We hate what Satan does to people, and Satan is pure sin. If we don’t hate sin then we don’t hate what Satan does to people, which makes a part of us indifferent to Satan!
Consider some of the evil in this world: People going on killing sprees and terrorists torturing and killing people because they are Christians. Look at the evil in the world and you can see the aim of Satan and his demons is to destroy people, families, and governments, all in an effort to entice the world against God’s people. But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:1-4). These verses describe what Satan and his demons are doing to people. If we hate what Satan is doing to people and to the world, then we must hate sin, because Satan is pure sin.
Today, recognize any sin in your thoughts, know that it originates from Satan and destroy it through Christ. Don’t let Satan become the angel of light in your life, by leading you to justify something that is displeasing to God. If you have to justify a decision, then it’s probably displeasing to God, because we never have to justify doing God’s will.
Let’s Pray: Lord, help me to hate sin and not the sinner, and to know that the sinner has been captured by Satan and his lies. Help me to become a spiritual warrior by hating sin, and fighting sin with the victory of overcoming Satan and his demons. Thank you for the power you give me through the Holy Spirit, divine power that overcomes Satan and his demons. In Jesus name, Amen