There is a distinction...

...between sin and the sinner.  If there weren't, how could God love one and hate the other.  Today I was reading Spurgeon's Morning & Evening and he wrote about the ferocity of Christ's hatred for sin.  This quote in particular caught my attention:

"As warm as is His love to sinners, so hot is His hatred of sin; as perfect as is His righteousness, so complete shall be the destruction of every form of wickedness."

"As warm as is His love to sinners..."  This phrase bears such a fantastic paradox.  When I think of God's wrath, particularly in the Old Testament, I am often overwhelmed with the more blunt aspects of justice in the Kingdom of God.  And yet, Christ demonstrated this while we were still sinners...subjects of such wrath...by dying for us.  Some question His divinity but keep in mind that this man willing allowed himself to be placed on the cross to make atonement for us.  Oh, the ferocity of His love for us.

Yesterday I read some particularly hurtful, spiteful things in a discussion forum.  I was perplexed at the shear hatred being expressed by one particular individual and I was even more so discouraged because it was being expressed by someone who allowed us to infer that he followed Christ.  This man wasn't expressing hatred of sin, he was expressing hatred of people.  Another of Spurgeon's quotes about Jesus today seemed an appropriate antidote:

"He hated it (sin) in others; none the less fervently because He showed His hate oftener in tears of pity than in words of rebuke"  Oh yes, Jesus did rebuke.  But he often wept because of the captivity he found in all of us.  We were, after all, slaves to sin and he mourned that slavery when he saw it expressed.  This reminds me that when I see such depravity in others, I must bear in mind a few things.

1 - But for the grace of God, that same depravity can rule me.
2 - The heart of God for all of us is filled with more love than I could ever understand.

So, when I see the world going the way it goes when we don't seek His Kingdom, I will cling to these truths.  Jesus loves me...and others...this, I know.