Day #202 - Love/Hate
The Presence - A Devotional for living in Thanksgiving, Worship and Wonder
“You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”
Psalms 45:7 NIV
Have you ever had a love/hate relationship?
We use this phrase in our culture called love/hate which seems illogical on the one hand, but represents a relationship we have with certain things in life. For instance, we might have a love for candy, but we hate how it can have control over us. We usually use this phrase for something that feels good but has bad consequences. Because sometimes things feel good but are not good for us.
But the truth is if we love something we will hate what destroys love. If you are a lover then you will have something you will hate. If you love someone bound in addiction then you love the person but you hate the addiction that destroys their life. The psalmist in Psalm 45 is speaking about the One who operates in a love/hate relationship. This Psalm is about the secret to Jesus’s life and ministry carrying the anointing or “the Presence.”
God anointed, Jesus the Son of God, with the oil of joy because he loved righteousness and hated wickedness. If we want to have the anointing like Jesus, we must love righteousness and hate wickedness. The anointing, as we looked at earlier in this series, is the oil that was smeared upon holy people and holy objects that came from crushed and pressed olives. The anointing oil is representative of “the Presence” of the Holy Spirit for consecration, empowerment and service. Those who are of “the Presence” are smeared with the oil that comes from crushing and pressing. This crushing and pressing releases in us a love for righteousness and a hate for wickedness.
If we want to attract the anointing or “the Presence” than we need to develop a mind and a life that is attractive to God. Of course, we can only be holy by the grace of God and receive His presence as a gift. I am not talking about earning. I am talking about obedience and the formation of our desires to be formed by the desires of the One we love. If we love Jesus, we ought to love what He loves and hate what He hates. When grace is operating in us, we bear this fruit of obedience.
To be anointed with joy means we have been set above our companions. God’s reward for our love of righteousness and a hatred for wickedness is the anointing. “The Presence” is both our pursuit and our prize.
Lord Jesus, You love righteousness and hate wickedness, therefore God has set you above all others and anointed You with the oil of joy. Make my life like Yours. Anoint me with the oil of joy. Through the pressing and crushing of learning to love righteousness and hate wickedness, you release Your presence over me. You are my pursuit and You are my prize. In Your name, Jesus, amen.
Psalm 45 has special meaning for me personally; sometimes I call it my life verse, although it is far more than a verse. Thank you for the commentary on it, about loving righteousness and hating wickedness, and about the crushing that happens for the anointed, and that this psalm is all about Jesus our King. One thing I noticed recently from this verse, "All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia," is that Jesus was buried, after He was crushed, with myrrh and aloes in John 19:39, and now His Kingly robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes. ❤✝❤