THINK TOGETHER.
Have you ever hated someone?
READ TOGETHER
Proverbs 26:24. Whoever hates disguises himself with his lips and harbors deceit in his heart.
Hate is a terrible thing. Hate can literally destroy you. Hate is the opposite of love and kindness. When you love someone you would do anything for them and you hope that they will succeed and be happy. But when you hate someone you want them to be miserable and you hope that they don’t ever win or succeed.
Now the thing about haters is that what is in their heart is not necessarily what they say with their lips. You might hate someone but never say it. In fact, you can hate someone and still say nice things to them. Here is an important thing to understand as you grow up – what you see on the outside of a person may not be what is on the inside of a person.
Sometime we are even encouraged to act like this. When the adult says to two fighting children, “Just get along, play nice, stop fighting or you’ll both lose recess. Can you guys get along?” And you answer with a yes, but deep inside your hatred has not gone away. You said something with your lips that you didn’t mean with your heart.
Jesus cares way more about our hearts than about what we say. Why? Because he knows that anyone can change what they say, but only he can change our hearts. Only he can take away hatred from inside of us. How does he do that? By replacing it with his own love. When we know and believe how much we are loved by Jesus, it slowly but surely takes away our desire to hate others. Being loved by Jesus feels so much better than hating others and covering up your hatred with your fake words. And when we know how much Jesus loves that same person that we want to hate, and when we get to know that person a little bit more, well then it becomes pretty hard to hate someone.
Because of Jesus we are loved by God and so is that person we want to hate.
With Jesus we can replace hate with love.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Make 1 John 4:20a your family memory verse.
PRAY TOGETHER
Jesus, replace the hate in my heart with your love. Amen.
TLICfamily 