God's Pet Peeves

"There are six things the Lord hates—no, seven things he detests:  haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord in a family." Proverbs 6:16-19

Do you have any pet peeves?

We all have those things that tend to get under our skin or bother us in a profound way, like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Maybe for you it's those texting drivers, oblivious to the lights and horns and the mayhem they are causing all around them. Or, perhaps it's the person who pulls out their cell phone at the dinner table.

For me, the number one pet peeve is hearing profanity from the mouth of a believer.  It's like a taser jolt directly to my soul when I hear someone I know and trust, someone who claims to follow Christ, utter words of profanity purposefully, with seemingly no remorse.  It is probably the same way they feel when they hear me partake in gossip, or say negative things about someone else, needlessly.  The Holy Bible tells us that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks" (Matthew 12:34).

God has things that get under His skin, too.  His pet peeves are the ones that matter.  In reviewing His list from the passage of Scripture above, I am convicted by the fact that I have been guilty of doing all of the things that God hates.  And, while I haven't literally murdered an innocent person, the hatred I have felt for persons undeserving of it is equally grievous to God (1 John 3:15).

If we have Christ as our Savior, these things that the Lord hates have no place in our lives.  If we find them there, then it's time for some open heart surgery--the kind that begins with real repentance of sin.

May your life and mine be lived in such a way as to be a life-giving perfume to those who are being saved, and may we be a joy to our Father in Heaven.