On a Scale from Love to Sin

BIBLICAL POINT OF REFERENCE:

"So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth."

~Revelation 3:16

Have you ever thought about what the opposite of love is? After taking a quick look at what Google thinks, I've gathered that the most common answer is that apathy - or indifference - is the opposite of love.

If you've never heard this before, you probably thought that hate was the opposite of love. I think that's what everyone believes until someone tells them differently, or they get curious and look it up on the Internet like I did. But there is something about apathy that doesn't sit right with me - like there is so much more in opposition with love than just being indifferent.

So what else can be defined as the opposite of love? Hate. Lust. Greed. Envy. Pride. Anger. Selfishness. I've basically just summed up the Seven Deadly Sins, which can be broken down to one word that is truly in opposition with love: sin. Because how can sin have anything to do with love? Better question is, how can sin have anything to do with God? They don't work together. They aren't of the same equation.

I know what you're thinking: Great, I used to be able to be angry and prideful and greedy and all that stuff, and I could still be a loving person through it all. That's like me saying, "Oh yeah, I'm totally sinning right now, but at least I'm doing it in the name of love" or something like that. Maybe that's not where your thought process went, but the point is that you cannot be on an equal scale with love if you are sinning. It just isn't done.

Let's put it this way: We know that God = Love. We also know that God is without sin. So if God = Love, and Love has no place for sin, than sin must be the opposite of love. Sin must be that point where we are so far from knowing Love that we have to seek forgiveness to find it again. The opposite of love must be those actions that take us farther from Jesus and farther from Love.

Any sin that we commit isn't done in the name of love...it's done in opposition of Christ.

So what is the opposite of love? Apathy is a good place to start. But so is any other wrongdoing that would draw you to a Confession line. I'm not going to tell you to not sin, because we all know that isn't going to work. But I am going to tell you to start thinking about your actions on a scale from Love to Sin, and which side you're closer to in difficult moments of life.

Your Laughing Sister,

Callahan

Check out the WISDOM and REGRET quotes pages for more inspiration!