7 THINGS GOD HATES

The 10 Commandments are instructions God has given us to live a good life. Proverbs 6:16-19 gives us the further, sharpened, information we need to live as good people. This study begins with verse sixteen: 

These six things the Lord hates, yes seven are an abomination to Him. 

When God hates something, it is because that thing harms His children. God does not only hate it when we harm someone else, it bothers him when we harm ourselves too. Cruel behavior traumatizes, and harmfully rewires the brain of the doer and the victim.

With His wisdom and experience with humanity, He knows that the following behavior is toxic. Not only to the poisoned but to the poisoner. For while kindness proliferates, unkindness festers. God hates to see us live in festering chaos and evil because he loves us. Therefore receive these seven things he hates as fatherly discipline.

1. A Proud Look: Arrogance is ignorance. Ignorance is neglect. Neglect is wasteful. God does not want us to waste our lives. We each have the potential and the opportunity to make an impact on the people and thus world around us. Arrogance obscures reality; it disallows us to see life at is actually is. When we have a distorted view of the world, how we behave and respond does not match how we should.

Our placement is specific. All around us and within us lie the materials we need to work God will into the world. God has provided, and continues to uncover those supplies, abilities and opportunities as we seek them out. God would much prefer to spend his time and effort exalting us. But when we waste our time exalting ourselves, we cause Him to become busy trying to humble us. For God works tirelessly to restore balance in our lives. If we are willing to discipline ourselves in humility, God ensures that we are rewarded.  

Luke 14:11 For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

A prideful look dismisses another person's value. As God intricately, emphatically loves each of His children, He hates it when one of those children is disrespected. God has claimed humanity, each individual, even though He is fully aware of our proclivity for selfish behavior. To Him, it is nonsensical that we would dismiss a person because of a deficiency they have. Because we all have deficiencies, all except for Him, and He never dismisses anyone. 

A proud look does not acknowledge its tenuous grasp on that which it is so prideful about. Only faith secures blessing in our lives. Beauty, power, wealth are all useless but a proud man refuses to realize that until he is forced to. Until he is forced to realize that contentment, happiness, security never came from manipulative, self-motivated efforts.

2. A Lying Tongue: God instructs us to be honest and straightforward. If we adhere to the truth, it encourages us to live in a way we will not be ashamed to admit. If we have righteous intentions every time we act, justice will always defend our cause (even if no one else does).

Not only is lying a distortion, it is also ineffectual. A proper solution cannot come from a delusion. A problem cannot be tackled unless it is identified and captured whole. God wants us to have a clear and stable foundation whenever we begin something, especially a righteous life, because a house divided cannot stand, Mark 3:25. We cannot expect truth from others, or to have true, meaningful relationships if 

Lying inhibits the growth of a person, a relationship, a family, a community. 

3. Hands That Shed Innocent Blood: God has a gentle, yet fierce heart. He loves His children so much that when they are harmed, His indignation explodes. God has decided the tremendous value of innocent people; He has devoted His whole self to them. No person, institution, ideology or force should be so arrogant as to believe that they have a right to harm what He has claimed. 

4. A Heart That Devises Wicked Plans: God provides each individual purpose and potential while on earth. Those blessings should not be squandered away with useless, regressive, destructive wickedness. We can be productive here, impactful. God does not want us to waste our time and ability on ruining things and people. 

5. Feet That Are Swift in Running to Evil: We must never be eager to choose the deceptive choice, the greedy choice, or the cruel choice. Children of God understand that patience and humility generate blessings into their lives inevitably.

6. A False Witness Who Speaks Lies: God outlines the entire, detailed truth for us, Mark 13:23. If our Father sees no benefit to lying, why do we? We must never condemn others with untrue words. Communication is essential, and therefore out ability to communicate wisely and earnestly is one of our best tools and weapons to survive the world.

The seventh thing is an abomination to God.

7. One Who Sows Discord Among Brethren: The perpetuation of discord is regressive and foolish. The creation of discord is cruel. Peace on earth is tender and precious. In many places, it is rare. God considers it an abomination to create discord in the place of peace. The destruction of a loving relationship, friendship or opportunity deeply angers God. We must respect what is delicate and good, humanity's well-being depends on our ability to be respect sowers of harmony.

FITTING OUT THE SHIP

"Fitting out" a ship means putting in everything a ship needs, both to carry passengers and to power the vessel." Stephanie Sabol  

The phrase "fitting out the ship" has a spiritual application. All of the work God does for and within you, is meant to provide you with everything you need, both to carry others and to power you, a vessel for the Holy Spirit. For waters of the world are turbulent, and only a skilled navigator and fitted ship can chart them.

The process through which God prepares, stocks, and powers you is less affectionately known as discipline. Discipline is something we naturally resist. Discipline forces us to bend against our will, decide against our preferences, and push beyond our limits. During its process, discipline feels more like punishment than benefit. Yet discipline, strenuous and unpleasant though it is, is a process for which we should be grateful; Hebrews 12:5-6; Proverbs 3:11-12 explain:

"... do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every child whom he receives."

If we are to be "fitted out" or, disciplined, by God, we should understand how, why and the way to endure (perhaps even appreciate) the process. 

THE SHIP

Every person is a vessel; mind and limbs and entire body work to exert an individual's will in the world. The same is true for a child of God, but there is an emphatic tweak: our mind and limbs and entire body work to exert God's will in the world. We abandon our own, or at least, we try to as, throughout our lives, we submit further to His will. We do so because we trust His above our own. We trust His foresight, we have confidence in His power, and we believe in His purposes over anyone else's. 

But if we are truly going to be vessels of the Holy spirit, ships navigating the waters of the world according to His purposes, we need to be built spiritually robust. Just as it would be unpleasant to be hammered, carved and sanded, so can it be unpleasant to be lectured, thwarted, or made to fail.

If God did not love us, He would leave us to our own devices. The end of humanity would be a quick and cruel process done to itself. But He does love us, very much, and if He is to yield the "peaceful fruit of righteousness (Hebrews 11:11)" within us we have to be disciplined. You will recognize discipline by this taste: humble pie. You will recognize discipline by this emotion: shame. You will recognize discipline by this outcome: failure.

None of us like to relive the moments when we were humbled, ashamed, or defeated. But God exploits those moments. He makes full use of them, using our pain and frustration as a site to be surveyed, analyzed, dug into. In such emotionally intense, raw states it is easiest to see the connections between cause and effect, action and reaction and most of all: the futility of living for selfish purposes. 

Once we learn how the wrong motivations lead to the wrong decisions and how the wrong decisions lead to the wrong outcomes, it is easier to release our selfish purposes. And sometimes, when we actually do receive the outcome we thought we wanted, we realize it is not what we should have wanted at all. We realize that it does not provide the joy or even contentedness we thought it would. When that happens, it's easier to grab onto the truth that "your Father knows what you need" (Matthew 6:8)" and that maybe you really don't.

That release (of selfish purposes) and that grab (onto truth) are crucial to the ships form, to your form. They are the difference between sinking and staying afloat. 

THE WATERS

In scripture, tribulation is often symbolized by water:

• Psalm 69:1-2 Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.
• Isaiah 43:2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
• Lamentations 3:54 the waters closed over my head, and I thought I was about to perish.
• Psalm 18:16-17 He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.

Your relationship with God, your willingness to submit to His discipline, prepares you for the plight of those deep and turbulent waters. If we are to be vessels of the Holy spirit, it simply will not due for us to give up, give in, get angry, or go astray. But without practice, we will give up. Without the process of building strength, you will give in. Without being singed by the flames of anger, we will burn from anger. Without the proper mooring to the philosophy of God, we will go astray.

We have to experience those things in order to extract their essential oils, the elements of them that make us strong and wise in faith, selfless in body and soul. But it requires discipline to utilize those moments; because when you are broken or ashamed, you are reluctant to submit yourself to constructive criticism or to consider consequence a valuable lesson. Because although water gives us life, we are not exactly cognizant or grateful for that as it rushes toward us or threatens to rise above our heads.

You are a ship because you are in the waters; and if you are a ship in the waters, you need to be fitted out. Otherwise, your tribulation will sink you. In character. In spirit. In life. No matter who you are, more than once in your life a wave will go over your head and send you crashing down. That moment will either be an end or a beginning: your demise, or your first day of training.

THE CARGO

It is through our trials that we become stocked with the cargo we need in order to be properly fitted out. Through trials, God provides opportunity to build spiritual muscle, the true strength that is: patience and endurance, courage, character and hope. The most important cargo a ship could carry; the products that persevere us through the waters.

Trials: some are different, many are the same, though caused by different circumstances for each individual. Our trials are the things we have to either cope with or surrender to, the happen within us: our insecurities, our losses, loneliness, sadness and fear. Our temper our greed, our temptation, pride and anxiety. But the weariness, the fainthearted-ness they birth within us, are conquerable.

The loneliness and loss teach us to value people not things, to nourish them and host them well when they come; to build attentive and empathetic relationships. The fear gives us opportunity to learn what we care about enough to choose courage. The sadness encourages us to explore for reprieve from sorrow. The anxiety causes us to inquire of peace and its attainability. The temptation teaches us that we are leashed until we deny it enough to set ourselves free. The insecurity causes us to question the context of our culture and to make corrections. All of those things could snuff us out, but instead let them light a fire. Disciplining ourselves to re-purpose our trial's power in our lives helps us to build the cargo we need to survive any storm that brews in the waters. 

We conquer those sea beasts by remembering that as a child of God, there is hope. There is breakthrough. There is purpose. We conquer our trials by remembering that endings are beginnings, if we pray them to be. And that is the most precious cargo of all: faith. 

We are ships in the sea, in the world, but in heaven we are God's cargo and He protects us with His life. He prepares us with every skill and piece of wisdom He has. We are made able navigate the choppy waters because we have been supplied with the necessary elements to do so.

Romans 3:3-4 tells us to "glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope." Paul told us to, as children of God, notice a storm brewing on the sea and glory in it. He told us to strengthen our legs, lift up our hands, and to walk straightforward. He wanted us to realize that the love and strength of God within us is more than enough to see a storm and strengthen, as spiritual discipline taught us to do. To be ready, to be brave. Every storm is a chance to be charted; and as a fitted out ship, you can chart it. Trust the process of discipline because each stage produces a new product, a more refined you.

Someone else might see a storm on the horizon and fall. Someone else might find themselves in the midst of a storm and fail. But as a child of God, see a storm and resolve to fight. You've been fitted for the fight.