What is it that really distinguishes men from each other in the eyes of God? What is it that marks one person out from another in the spiritual realm and distinguishes true religion from what is false? Love for God is the mark of true religion and what really distinguishes people. That is because love for God is the sign that a person has had the old nature of hate for God taken away and now God lives in that person. The true believer will hear new teachings about God and will not hate them, but the religious and the unreligious unbeliever will hear of a new teaching about God and will hate it. It may be presented as an intellectual disagreement or of some reason, but down deep the person hates it. Romans 8:7 shows this: “because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so.” Romans 1:28 does too: “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents.” Even though the person may be very religious, there is a refusal to keep the true God in the knowledge so the truth of God is cast out because the mind is hostile to the true God and does not want to recognize the true God.
We must realize that there are very religious people who attend church every time the door is open who hate God. People who are very knowledgeable of the Bible and perhaps of theology are leaders in the churches and yet hate God. There are professors at Bible colleges and seminaries that have vast amounts of information about the Bible and theology and yet hate God. The Pharisees were very religious and professed a great commitment to God and yet hated the truth of God when He shone forth in Jesus Christ. “He who hates Me hates My Father also” (John 15:23). It is possible for people to pursue knowledge of the Bible and theology out of hatred for God rather than out of love for Him. One can pursue those things out of love for self which is to be at enmity with God. It has been said that the devil knows more about the Bible and theology than any human and yet it fuels his hatred for God. The Holy Spirit must work love for God in the hearts of people. While the Spirit works through Scripture, He does not work because of a person’s knowledge of Scripture. The Spirit works by grace alone.
The modern world jeers and mocks at the idea that Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation and to the Father. Many under the umbrella of Christianity (in name) are as worldly as the world. It seems as if the only difference between the world and many in the professing Church is that some think God is there to make them rich and to give them worldly things as long as they are good and say the right things. Yet James tells us in his letter to churches that if one that is a friend of the world that shows the person to be an enemy of God (4:4). Matthew tells us that we cannot serve God and wealth at the same time (6:24), yet many think that in the service of God He will give them a lot of wealth. So they say they are serving God and get wealth. They are blind to the fact that they serve God in name only and do this in order to obtain wealth. This is also hatred for God.
It is a shocking thing to think but it is necessary in our day. Many make professions and attend a local congregation for a while, but then they fall away and go back to a good life or the world. They say that they just don’t need church. They might blame things or people for their dropping out, but it might be that they hate God. It might also be that they love God and cannot stand to see His name dishonored. The practices and thinking of the world has become part of “doing church” and yet those things are just thought of as innovative. It is a terribly deceitful thing when the hatred of God is brought into the church and then passed off as being love for God. One of the most dangerous places to be in America is to be in a professing Church when that “church” has swallowed the world and is dispensing it in the name of God. That is hatred for God being passed off as love for God.
The real distinction between people in professing churches is not if they are Reformed or Arminian and is not in the kind of music people listen to or the clothes they wear. The real distinction is between those that love God and those that hate Him. Psalm 81:15 tells us that “those who hate the LORD would pretend obedience to Him.” If churches are going to repent of sin and seek the Lord in truth and love, then there must be a real examination of hearts to see if the love of God is truly there. Many wonder why there is such a thing as dead orthodoxy. Others wonder why some churches are so dead and lifeless. One major reason could simply be that there are a few to many people in those congregations that hate God in reality. It might even be the most kind and sensitive person in the congregation. It might be the one that is the hardest worker on the outside. Both of those kinds of people can pretend obedience as well and all they do may be an effort to hide their hearts from themselves. We must begin to look for biblical love (not as the world defines it) for God in the “churches.”
God Loves... Himself 
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