Loving What God Loves, Hating What He Hates (Proverbs 8:13)
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Proverbs 8:13
The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.
Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
and perverted speech I hate.
Earlier this week in Proverbs 1:7, we looked at and prayed through how the ‘fear of the Lord’ is the beginning of knowledge. It’s an affectionate reverence for God.
This verse, however, adds weight to that definition. It doesn’t just say we should fear the Lord—it tells us what that fear produces in us. God wants to align our hearts with His.
He wants us to love what He loves and hate what He hates.
Now alignment with God’s heart isn’t something we have to manufacture on our own. It’s something God does in us through His Spirit. His Spirit is shaping you to share in His affections, meaning you’ll love righteousness and pursue it, and you won’t just leave sin, you’ll loathe it, and you’ll begin to do whatever it takes to fight against it.
And some of those sins to fight against are named in the second half of this verse:
‘Pride and arrogance and the way of evil
and perverted speech I hate.’
God hates pride. In fact, He hates it so much, He referenced it twice in the same verse. A vice worthy of mention twice. I don’t think that’s an accident—we’ve said this before—when Scripture doubles down, we should pay attention. Pride and arrogance, God hates. He hates a haughty heart.
He also hates the actions and words that flow from that haughty heart—‘the way of evil’ and ‘perverted speech.’
This is the flip of what we saw in Proverbs 22:11, which we prayed through a few weeks back:
‘He who loves purity of heart, and whose speech is gracious, will have the king as his friend.’
Christ the King is a friend of those who hate evil and love purity, who hate perversion and love what is good and gracious.
So reflect on that this morning.
Do you love what God loves and hate what He hates?
Are there sins you tolerate that God despises?
And how can you let Christ transform your heart to live out this verse?
Whatever your thoughts, whatever your reflections, let’s bring it to the throne of grace in prayer.
Let’s pray.
