Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth – 1 Corinthians 13:6

God and evil do not mix. God is pure love, mercy, and grace. He is kindness and goodness. For this reason, He simply cannot tolerate evil. Which was why He sent Jesus to the Cross for us. For us to be reconciled to God and spend eternity with Him, we needed to atone for our sins. Something we all, as humans, have a tendency towards. So Jesus went to the Cross to be our atonement, washing us of our sin and cleansing us, making a way for us to be in eternity with God.

So how does this affect our everyday walk with Jesus? Put simply, we cannot rejoice or be complacent about evil. This looks like many different things, such as not repaying evil with evil. It can be easy to want to seek revenge or to retaliate when someone hurts us, but loving people like Jesus means we don’t delight in evil. We instead rejoice in the truth, which is we are flawed people that need God and need forgiveness. This can also look like us standing for what is right to those around us, such as to our family or friends. If you have someone in your world who is knowingly lying or hurting others, as a follower of Jesus, we can’t turn a blind eye to it or go along with it. Rejoicing in the truth means we speak the truth in love and with kindness and grace, outline what is right or wrong.

God loves us so much that He is constantly trying to refine us and make us look more like Jesus. He wants us to be righteous. We need to love people enough to go beyond our discomfort or fear and speak the truth with gentleness and grace. This does not mean that we pick up every battle there is. That is unrealistic and too much for anyone. But it means that with the leading and help of the Holy Spirit, we open our eyes to what is happening around us and allow God to direct us in how we love people with truth.

If you are battling with feelings of anger or evil, can I encourage you to seek the Holy Spirit and ask Him to help you not delight in those feelings but to rejoice in the truth; that God is holy, true, and loving, and the greatest way we can show His love is to love like Him.