When it comes to sin and evil, are they something you hate or regret? The difference is not wordplay or subtlety. It’s one thing to feel bad about disobeying God and quite another to be repulsed at the thought of ever doing so. Our sin is the reason Jesus had to suffer and die in our place as an atoning sacrifice. (Isaiah 53:5-6; 1 Peter 3:18) To come to a place of repentance requires more from us than just regretting Jesus had to go through that.
He doesn’t need you to feel bad for Him. What Jesus desires is that you recognize your need for His sacrifice. (Mark 1:15; Luke 5:32) The Lord cannot tolerate sin (Habakkuk 1:13; Psalm 5:4-5) and as we are called to look and act like Him (Ephesians 5:1-2; 1 John 2:6), we too must hate every sin and every form of wickedness. (Romans 12:9; Psalm 97:10)
It’s not enough to shake our heads at the evil men do. (Ephesians 5:11; Amos 5:15) We must abhor it with every ounce of our being. God calls us to be holy, just like Him. (1 Peter 1:15-16; Leviticus 19:2) Holiness cannot coexist with evil. (2 Corinthians 6:14-15; 1 John 1:5-6) We must choose one or the other. Sinful men love darkness rather than light. (John 3:19-20) May no one ever say that about us.
There is no shortage of evil in the news. You can’t go through a day without hearing about the atrocities one human can wreak on another. Every instance of injustice should invoke righteous anger and a tearful eye. (Psalm 119:136; Ephesians 4:26-27) This isn’t the way God desires things to be. (Ecclesiastes 7:29; Genesis 1:31) The world is, however, what sinful humans desire it to be. (Romans 3:10-18; Genesis 6:5-6) Don’t you hate that?
Whether we hate or regret sin reveals the sincerity of our devotion to Christ. It speaks volumes about how much we understand the character of God. All good things come from the Father. (James 1:17) There is no evil or darkness in Him. (1 John 1:5; Deuteronomy 32:4) To love the wicked things of this dark world is to reject Christ and declare ourselves God in His place. (1 John 2:15-17; Romans 1:25) As Carl Trueman writes in The Desecration of Man, “All we need to do is cross lines previously enforced by the idea of God and we thereby assume the role of being gods.”
Submission to Jesus as Lord demands a deep hatred of sin. Our sole desire is to do whatever pleases and brings glory to our King. Wickedness and evil will never do either of those things, so we must eradicate them from our lives. (Colossians 3:5-10; Romans 8:13) We are children of light, not of darkness. (Ephesians 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:5)
We must choose whether we will hate or regret our sin. Regret tends to stem from getting caught. Left unchecked, a person who only regrets their sin will continue living in it. If we hate it, then we understand the depth of pain every sin causes our Father. We never want to indulge in it again, and the very thought of sinning turns our stomachs. There is no way to love the things of this world and God. (Matthew 6:24; 1 John 2:15) It will always be one or the other. You will love God and hate sin, or you will love sin and hate God. (Romans 8:7-8; Psalm 119:104) That decision is up to you.