I realize the message in this post could be organized better in a way to make reading it easier, but if I tried to improve it, it would never be ‘good enough’ and would never get published.

Back to speaking of meanings, there are different ways to perceive the meanings of English words like love, hate, and forgiveness. Much confusion would be avoided if people, when using such words, clarified their perception of them. That’s why when studying the bible, especially the King James version, it’s important to examine the particular usages of the original Hebrew and Greek meanings in the context of where they’re being used.

The way I’m using the words love and hate in this post are not like how they’re used in the King James bible. If I did do that, it would only be more confusing and maybe require the size of a book to explain. Instead, I’m trying to stick to the most basic understanding of these terms in contemporary society.

Love exists when you feel the same feelings as the object of your affection does; joy with joy, sadness with sadness, laughter with laughter, contentment with contentment, etc. Hate exists when you feel the opposite feelings the object of your affection does and/or your feelings are not affected [i.e., alienated, unsympathetic, uncaring, apathetic, insensitive, unconcerned, thoughtless, heartless, callous, unfriendly, indifferent, pitiless, stony, hard-hearted, unkind, unfeeling, etc.] by what that certain other individual feels.

It is not possible to love someone (other than self) while disliking him or her. Not liking someone is a symptom of pride and judging, because it is comparing another person to yourself and thinking of yourself as being the better person. Pride makes us judgmental.

Humility is thinking of yourself less. When self is effaced, there is nothing left to compare yourself to others. Not liking yourself is a symptom of pride and judging, because it is comparing others to yourself and thinking of yourself as not being as good as them. If you are humble, you are not judgmental.

It’s impossible to hate yourself. Even if you’re depressed and want to commit suicide, you still love yourself. You can intensely dislike yourself while loving yourself, but you can’t love someone else and dislike him or her. To understand this, the meaning of love must be seen in its simplest form. Love is being connected. It is a connection with an affection. Hate maybe can also be this, but not towards self because self is a single entity and hate requires more than one person for it to exist [a hater and a hate-e].

If a person you love is upset and depressed, you are also upset and depressed. That means you can be upset and depressed within your own being, while also loving yourself. If it were possible to hate yourself, you’d either never be able to feel good (or bad) or you’d feel happy when you’re sad (or sad when you’re happy); neither is possible for one being.

If you don’t like yourself, you can’t love others. If you love others, you like yourself. It’s also equally possible to hate others and love yourself — regardless of whether you like or dislike yourself.

It’s impossible to disconnect yourself from what you feel. Maybe you might not be always consciously aware of what you’re feeling, but you don’t need to be in order to be affected by things and/or people. It’s possible to love someone without realizing it and it’s equally possible to hate someone without realizing it, but usually we know what’s going on within us.

In order to not love yourself, you’d have to be able to never feel any emotion. Even if you were as humble as Jesus or Moses (i.e., totally self-effaced; removed from awareness of self), you’d still experience emotions. Only physically dead people don’t feel emotions. Spiritually dead people are disconnected from the feelings of those who they don’t love. That is why they will either have opposite feelings towards someone they don’t love or no feelings towards him or her.

Christians can sometimes behave in an unloving manner, but when they do and then become aware of it, they repent unlike how a worldly person does. Forgetting (or not knowing in your heart) that we’re all born in sin (including self) and we all need a savior, will make it hard for us to forgive a person who has wronged us. Forgiving doesn’t mean forgetting an offense done to self or automatically pardoning the one who trespassed against us. All it means is desiring the same for that person as what we (Christians) want from God.

What unrepentant people want from God is for God to serve them. What Christians want from God are to be reconciled to Him in order to give Him what He wants from our (Christians’) life (even if it means physically surrendering life itself and willfully accepting death if that would bring Him glory).

Christians might not always behave like they love others, but deep down inside their heart they really cannot continue to deceive themselves. That’s what happens when God’s spirit abides within. If that wasn’t so, God wouldn’t have said in Philippians 1:6, “Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. — Proverbs 4:23

What you plant and grow in your mind determines your destiny. — Proverbs 4:23

Luke 18:10-14,

Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

True hate speech doesn’t target behavior. Instead, the focus is personal. If someone is sincere about what he is saying, then there is no need for him to tack on any particular person to make his point.

Here is an example:

I hate adultery. Adultery is a bad behavior. I don’t like seeing it in other people and I would especially hate to see it crop up in myself. I now know what Jesus meant by his statement, “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart (or if it’s a woman, then substitute it with, ‘…whosoever looketh on a man to lust after him hath committed adultery with him already in her heart’).”   —  Matthew 5:28

You have to ‘nip sin in the bud.’ All bad behavior begins with nurturing its malignant thought.

I just expressed my feelings on the topic of adultery. Did I need to include anyone personal who I thought might be masquerading as a friend but in reality is lusting after me? No, but if I did, then the only reason I would be doing so would be for trying to make myself look better by attempting to make another person look bad.

I chose to use what’s in this post for a page. I don’t want this issue getting buried underneath future posts.