“Through Your precepts I get understanding; Therefore I hate every false way.” Psalms 119:104 NKJV
It seems that everybody at some point or another has been labeled a hater. I know I have been called one on many occasions. Hater has got to be one of the most overused and watered down terms in our vocabs today. The Urban Dictionary defines a hater as:
“A person that simply cannot be happy for another person’s success. So rather than be happy they make a point of exposing a flaw in that person.”
While I definitely wouldn’t call myself a hater by that definition, I do hope that I am God’s kind of hater.
In this passage in Psalms the writer says that he has learned God’s ways so much that he now hates every false way. The Bible instructs us to do the same, with instructions like “be ye holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44, I Peter 1:16). While there are false theologies out there that place a hyper focus on the love part of God’s holiness, they often fail to also focus on the things that He hates, which is why they’re false ways. The Bible indeed tells us what God hates in many places, such as Proverbs 6:16-19 and Psalms 5:5. And whatever He hates, if we are to be more like Him, then we must hate that too.
So, though I don’t live by the Urban Dictionary’s definition of a hater, I am definitely striving to be a hater according to the Word. Are you?