Six Things The Lord Hates

I freely admit that even having read Proverbs and studied it in one of Jerome Nathan's classes some time back, I had no recollection of Proverbs 6:16-19, which I will leave in their poetic order:

There are six things the LORD hates,
   seven that are detestable to him:
    haughty eyes,
    a lying tongue,
    hands that shed innocent blood,
    a heart that devises wicked schemes,
    feet that are quick to rush into evil,
    a false witness who pours out lies
    and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.

Christians spend much time on doctrinal issues that delineate denominational differences, and these verses are about as clear a message from God as to what truly displeases him. We have the Ten Commandments, the Levitic law and Christ's two new commandments he'll introduce on October 29th, but what is RIGHT in God's eyes? We know we're not to sin, but what the heck is sin exactly?

This looks like a pretty good list to determine if an action is a sin. God isn't too interested in whether we are a Lutheran/ Baptist/Catholic/Methodist/Presbyterian/non-denominational, whether we baptized at birth, adulthood or someone other specified time, when we celebrated our First Communion or any other issue along these lines. On Judgment Day, he's going to separate us into two groups (I will discuss this extensively on November 1st), and both groups will ask God the same question, but he'll have different answers for the groups. For the group that doesn't do the items mentioned by Solomon, it will be the right answer, but for the other group, chances are that they DID commit these acts, and the Lord will reject them.

One facet of wisdom is learning something you didn't know before, and these six activities are easy for us to understand, and just as easy for us to recognize if we find ourselves slipping and doing one of them. My suggestion would be to keep these verses handy so you can refer to them any time you're not sure how to act in a given situation. More often than not, the fact you have to think about it in the first place should be your first hint, and seeing how it stacks up to this list should be all the guidance you'll need--and you'll be a wiser person.

Scott