The Sin of Sustained Hatred
The Sin of Sustained Hatred
Thursday
"Thus says the LORD: 'For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not revoke the punishment, because he pursued his brother with the sword and cast off all pity, and his anger tore perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever. So I will send a fire upon Teman, and it shall devour the strongholds of Bozrah.'"
— Amos 1:11-12 (ESV)
— Amos 1:11-12 (ESV)
There is a phrase in the Edom oracle that is easy to read past but impossible to overstate: 'he kept his wrath forever.' Edom and Israel were brothers — literally, the nations descended from Esau and Jacob. And yet Edom's anger had been nursed for so long, tended so carefully, that it had become permanent. The Hebrew word raḥămāyw — translated 'pity' or 'compassion' — is rooted in the word for womb. To cast off raḥǎmīm is to sever the last thread of gut-level human tenderness. God does not overlook sustained bitterness. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, would later say that unresolved anger puts a person in the same moral category as murder (Matthew 5:21–22, ESV).
Sustained hatred is exhausting to carry and corrosive to the soul. It damages the person holding it far more than the one it is directed at. The Gospel gives us both the reason and the power to lay it down: we have been forgiven a debt we could never pay. In light of that, every grudge we hold against another is trivial by comparison. Is there someone in your life toward whom you have 'kept your wrath'? Bring it to God today. Ask Him for the grace to release it.
Sustained hatred is exhausting to carry and corrosive to the soul. It damages the person holding it far more than the one it is directed at. The Gospel gives us both the reason and the power to lay it down: we have been forgiven a debt we could never pay. In light of that, every grudge we hold against another is trivial by comparison. Is there someone in your life toward whom you have 'kept your wrath'? Bring it to God today. Ask Him for the grace to release it.
Prayer Focus:
Freedom from sustained bitterness. Ask the Holy Spirit to surface any unresolved anger and give you the courage and grace to forgive.
Freedom from sustained bitterness. Ask the Holy Spirit to surface any unresolved anger and give you the courage and grace to forgive.
Posted in When God Roars - Amos 1
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