I noticed, today, that a friend of mine had marked on Facebook that he would attend an event, Erase Hate Day. Like the cat, curiosity got the best of me and I clicked on the event to see what it was all about. As I read down through a number of the comments and heard subscribers talking about the need to end hate, in all of it's multiple manifestations, something struck me.
How do we end hate? How do we make an end to bullying, violence to women, racism and the list goes on, seemingly, endlessly. It struck me that the only end to hatred is love. We cannot "erase" hatred but that we "replace" hatred. As I thought on this, I realized that this isn't specific to hatred but to any habit we want to put an end to. Luke 11:26 came to mind, "Then it (a demon cast out) goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."
We can impose the authority we may have to dispel that which is undesirable. We can demand and command obedience and adherence to strict codes of conduct ... for a period of time. If, however, the conduct we are looking to put an end to is not replaced with another behavior it will return and be more rooted than it was before.
How important it is, I was reminded, to seek the indwelling of God's Holy Spirit that my life may evidence the fruit of the Spirit which Galatians 5:22 and 23 tell us is, "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." If these characteristics are what I am known by, the need to "erase" habits from my life will have been taken care of because they will already have been "replaced".
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