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“For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.
The boastful shall not stand before your eyes;
you hate all evildoers.
You destroy those who speak lies;
the Lord abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
“But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love,
will enter your house.
I will bow down toward your holy temple
in the fear of you.
Lead me, O Lord, in your righteousness
because of my enemies;
make your way straight before me.
“For there is no truth in their mouth;
their inmost self is destruction;
their throat is an open grave;
they flatter with their tongue.” (Psalms 5:4-9 ESV)
Our God, the one who made us, who created the world – Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit – does not delight in evil, but he rejoices with the truth. Wickedness has no place with him. Those who boast in themselves and in their ungodly deeds, and not in God, will not stand before God, except in judgment. For the Lord destroys those who make lying and sinning their practice, unless they repent of their sins and they follow Jesus in obedience to him and to his commands. For the Lord abhors all that is evil.
[Jn 3:19-20; 2 Thes 2:9-10; 2 Thes 3:1-2; Jas 1:19-21; 3 Jn 1:10; Matt 7:21-23; Matt 15:18-20; Mk 7:20-22; Lu 6:45; Lu 13:26-28; Jn 5:28-29; Rom 1:29-32; Rom 2:6-10; 1 Co 6:9-10; 2 Co 5:10; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Col 3:5-11; Heb 3:12; 1 Pet 3:12; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10]
And one of the biggest reasons God hates evil so much, other than it is fully opposed to him and to his righteousness, is because of what sin does to his creation, to the people he made. And that is why God, in his love and mercy, sent his only begotten Son Jesus Christ, who is God, to take on human flesh and to die a horrible death on a cross for our sins. For in his death he who knew no sin became sin for us so that when he died our sins died with him, and when he was resurrected, he conquered sin, death, hell and Satan.
Therefore, by God-gifted and God-persuaded faith in Jesus Christ we are crucified with Christ in death to sin, and raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin, but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. Thus, we are no longer to allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its passions and desires. For if sin is what we obey, it leads to death. But if obedience to God is what we obey, that leads to righteousness and sanctification, and its end is eternal life with God.
[Heb 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10; Jn 1:12-13; Jn 6:44; Rom 6:1-23; 1 Pet 2:24; 2 Co 5:15,21; 1 Co 6:19-20; 1 Jn 1:5-10; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10]
So if we have been crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we have been raised with him to walk in newness of life in him, and by his grace, and in his power we are no longer walking in sin, but now in obedience to our Lord in holy living, then we are his people, his possession by faith in him. For this is what true faith produces in the lives of those who believe, in truth. And now we will want to do what pleases the Lord, not just because we must, but because we love him. And we will want to be led in his righteousness.
We will want our Lord to make a straight (upright, godly, honest) path before us, and we won’t be those who will try to find ways out of having to obey the Lord with our lives. We will accept his gospel message for what it is biblically, and we will not try to bend it or dilute it to serve our own purposes so that we can continue to live however we want. But this is not to say that we will never sin again. We could (1 John 2:1-2), but we should not deliberately sin against our Lord, especially not habitually and/or secretly.
For the wicked and the evildoers are those who look for ways to sin, sometimes in private so that no one will know. They are those who make lying and cheating their practice and who mock and slander the righteous who are following the Lord with their lives. For they have no shame. And many of them are people of prominence and prestige in our society and even within the gatherings of the church who flatter with their tongues but who are deceivers and manipulators, out to turn us away from Jesus Christ.
And they may well do this in the name of God, and of Christ, and of Christianity, all the while they are lying to us and getting us to accept their lies as truth and to reject the truth as though it is the lie, if we are those who listen to them and who believe what they say. For their goal presently is not to get us to renounce the name of Jesus, but to renounce the character and the teachings of Christ which teach that we must die with him to sin and that we must follow him in obedience to his commands.
For they want to convince us that a mere acknowledgment of who Christ was and of what he did for us in his death on that cross (not all of it) is enough to secure heaven for us when we die but while we continue in deliberate and habitual sin against the Lord. But that is not what the Scriptures teach. They teach that we must die to sin and now walk in obedience to our Lord’s commands (New Covenant) for us to have the hope of salvation from sin and eternal life with God, for that is what it means to believe in Jesus Christ.
[see all noted Scripture references above]
As the Deer
By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1
As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
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