Proverbs 8:13To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.Proverbs Daily is reader and listener-supported. Every post is free, but if you'd like to help spread the message and make the sacred positively contagious, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Just look for the word 'Upgrade' and click it! Thanks in advance.đ§ Hip-Hop History Break:The day was September 8, 2012, during the Summer Madness 2 event organized by the Ultimate Rap League. In one of the most iconic rap battles in history, Loaded Lux vs. Calicoe and Lux dropped the now-legendary line:"...you can read, everything in my bio has itHow did yâall disrespect God?Ainât it evil to live backwards?Let me bring that back âcause I need yâall to grasp itAinât it evil to live backwards?"And just like that the crowd erupted Ahhhh!!! âCause first of all, these were already lyric junkies anywayâŚAnd you could just see how the word picture formed and exploded in everyoneâs mind at the same time. With his depth word-play Lux put out the word evil and we all in real-time realized that the word evil is actually the word âliveâ (E-V-I-LâŚL-I-V-E) spelled BACKWARDS!!! AHHHH!!!!This moment in Hip Hop History was brought to you byâŚQuicker Malt Liquor (just kidding) but that line hit true in more ways than one. Evil isnât just darknessâitâs the capacity to live: twisted about, reversed, hijacked. Itâs potential perverted.When you grasp that, you gain a whole new way of looking at that which is evil. You start seeing evil as the product of broken love, misguided expectations and abandoned virtueâand you respond to those shipwrecked by evil with a higher love. Cause you're like, "But by the Grace of God...that could be me."Now Iâm about to get nerdy with this, but just stick with me for a bit. The verse said, âTo fear the Lord is to hate evilâŚâ and another Proverb teaches us that The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). âNow, if fear is the very beginning of wisdom, here's the question, what's the end or the fulfillment of wisdom? I believe is love.See I know for me, I got saved cause I âfeared hellâ straight up. But that type of fear didnât keep meâŚNo, I stayed saved cause I fell in love with Jesus.So FEAR starts the journey. But LOVE perfects or 'fulfills it'.Fear, as I interpret it here, isnât about terror or punishmentâitâs about recognition. The recognition of God. That awe that commands awareness: thatâs the beginning of wisdom, but to stay in fear is to stay in first grade. You may begin in reverence and trembling, but you graduate into resonance and love.So when Proverbs 8:13 says, âTo fear the Lord is to hate evil,â to me itâs describing that beginnerâs posture: a visceral recoil, a gut-level rejection of what is distorted. But we canât stop there. Hating evil without understanding it makes us mistake enemies for patients. It leaves us swinging swords where we should be mending wounds.But:â¤ď¸ Love Doesnât Hate Like You Think:You may have to chew on this one: I donât believe God hates the way we think about hate.Why? Because:âGod is love, and God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.â â 1 John 4:8If thereâs no darkness in Him, thereâs no hate-as-separation. Hate, in its raw human form, is the commitment to divide, to exclude, to destroy. But love? Love absorbs. Love unites. Love redeems.Even Satanâyes, the personification of evilâwas once an angel. A being created by God. Do I believe God hates Satan? I can't. Because to hate, in the divine sense, would be to deny God's own creative DNA. God may oppose evil. He may reject its ways. But He does not abandon what Heâs made.To truly fear God is to begin hating evil. To truly love God is to want to see evil set rightwards.Itâs a reversal of the reversal. If EVIL is LIVE spelled backwardsâthen loveâŚreconciliationâŚrenewal is what flips it forward.You donât beat darkness by cursing it. You transcend it by shining. Thatâs loveâs role: To bring what's backward back into alignment.This is why the greatest chapter on love ends with this:"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." â 1 Corinthians 13:7â8So what does love do with evil? It confronts it with compassion, transforms it with truth, and rewrites the story.đđ˝ PrayerTurn my fear into loveâthe kind that reverses curses.đĄ Todayâs Challenge:Think of something in your past or present youâve labeled as evil or too far gone. Instead of just rejecting it, sit with it. Ask: Whatâs the reversed potential in this? What would it look like for Godâs love to live in it again?Imagine love reversing it into something beautiful.About the AuthorFred Lynch is a creative communicator, author, and Christian Hip Hop pioneer. To learn more about Fred and what heâs up to nowâŚclick here or you can find him in all the socials by searching the handle: heyfredlynchđąExperience Proverbs Daily by Subscribing!Ready to receive daily wisdom directly on your phone?Go to proverbsdaily.org for the app âor just click that Subscribe button right now!Be Wise and Be Well...peace.Thanks for reading Proverbs Daily! This post is public so feel free to share it.
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