How can God love and tell us to love evil people?

The Question: How can God love evil people like Hitler or people who abuse or murder children for example? How can he tell us to love those people? It just isn’t possible.

Well on your own yes, it just isn’t possible, but with the Spirit of God working in you, all things are possible.

However that doesn’t really answer the main question.

God does tell us to love others, even our enemies (1 John 4:7-8, John 13:34-35, Luke 6:27-28, Ephesians 5:1-2, John 15:12) and the Bible does certainly say that God loves all people (John 3:16-17, 1 John 4:10-11, Lamentations 3:22-23, Romans 5:8, 2 Peter 3:9). This doesn’t mean that God accepts or supports what people do though, nor are we instructed to.

Love is not tolerance. I can hate the actions and mentality or ideals people have but that doesn’t mean I hate them. I can fight and oppose people in good conscience as a Christian while still showing them love and forgiveness when given the opportunity.

Many ‘Christian’ people seem to believe loving means accepting and even approving of people’s choices and actions and ideals. While I do believe we are in no position to judge other people, I do not believe that loving others means we support people’s ideals and personal morals and choices.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I go out and preach to people the ‘wrongness’ of their ways or anything like that. But if asked my opinion on a lifestyle choice or ideal someone has that is in conflict with how I believe God wants us to live, I will respectively and honestly provide my view and thoughts on the subject and my reasons for thinking or choosing that way.

Most people in our society seem to go out of their way to avoid any type of conflict of personal beliefs or the way we choose to live. The ‘everything is alright as long as it’s not too extreme’ attitude is very prevalent in religious groups, atheist groups and everyone in between…

I look at the state of our world and I cannot help but think everything is really not alright, and it should be very obvious. We have countless murders, rapes, abuse, lying, cheating and addictions right under our noses, not to mention the many thousands of people starving and fleeing war torn countries.

I think our massive lack of responsibility as a society stems from this ‘it’s all good’ type of attitude. No one wants to be concerned with anything but their own lives, as long as it’s not affecting them, they won’t worry about it.

Numerous children are being raised in abuse and violence and broken homes in our own neighborhoods and when they grow up and commit crimes we adamantly admonish punishment and shake our heads and say they get what they deserve. We are only willing to deal with the problems when they directly affect us.

Imagine how much the world would change if people started loving others like God says we should. I’m not even talking about following anything else in the Bible, just if we started showing real love towards each other in our communities and taking responsibility as a society for one another. I believe we would see a dramatic and positive change. I believe we could break those cycles of violence and abuse.

I think God commands us to love one another because that is the way He designed us as a society to live. He doesn’t want all the hurt and pain and abuse in the world to continue, He wants us to live in harmony with Him and each other. Supporting and helping one another instead of condemning and beating each other down.

God loves us despite our actions, and wants the very best for us. If we want to witness change in the lives of people doing things we know to be evil and wrong, indifference and then punishment when they do something bad enough to warrant our attention or affect us and then indifference towards them again until they commit the same crimes again isn’t going to solve the issue. We need to show love and compassion for them just as God loves us and has compassion on us.

Hating someone who does bad things is easy, but offers no opportunity for change in their life, and only fuels them on. Showing love and compassion to someone despite the things they do is very difficult, but is the only thing that may actually have a positive impact on their life and bring about a real change.

 


 

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7 thoughts on “How can God love and tell us to love evil people?”

  1. Very helpful. All the physical abuse of children in our Country is so heartwrenching. I have not known how to deal with all this violence and grief. Your article gave me a new perspective. These abusers are hurting themselves or they would not hurt others. The children have no defense aganist these adults, and I can now ask the Lord to love the abusive parents through my prayers.
    Thank you.

  2. You have answered my concerns.yes I believe we should pray for the abusers and the abused. Evil can sneak into all our lives. I now want to put my prayers into action

  3. Why do people judge and condemn others? When we all fall short of the glory of God, none of us are without Sin. We all sin and If we say that we haue no sinne, we deceiue our selues, and the trueth is not in us. God will judge everyone give and being kind to everyone.

  4. Christians are in a position to judge others.
    With righteous judgement,spiritually.
    That’s what discernment is ..to know if it is the Spirit of God or the world.

    1. Hi Michael, thank you for the comments. I suppose it may depend on your definition of what ‘judging others’ means, but yes, Christian’s are to ‘judge’ or determine by God’s Word and Spirit what is right and wrong for sure. I think there is a lot of misconception of what is ‘judging’ and what is ‘condemning’ though. It is one thing to advise someone that what they are doing is ‘wrong’ according to God from our understanding and discernment. It is another thing to tell someone they are ‘bad’ and take a position of ‘I am better than you are.’, if that makes sense. Unfortunately we see a lot of that in Christian communities. I think the bottom line is we need to ensure we are acting out of love and concern for the spiritual condition of our brothers and sisters whatever we do.

  5. Thanks for answering this question. I was confused at Bible study tonight enter someone said that God loves the evil doers and I was confused. How can God love people that he pours his wrath onto? I think I still struggle with my identity being tied to what I do and don’t do vs. what Jesus has done. This was a good reminder that love does not condone wrong doing but you can love someone without supporting their choices.

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