Why Does God Hate Me?

June 2, 2017
Greg Baker
Why Does God Hate Me?

If you are asking the question, “Why does God hate me?”, then probably you are looking at your life, the circumstances you’ve found yourself in, your relationships, your financial situation, or your health and you don’t like it. People who think this way usually face traumatic events or situations that, when compared to other people around them, seem to be unfair. Since they can’t see why they have to struggle and others do not, they can only see one explanation. God must hate them.

Perhaps you’ve tried to be a good person, but no matter what happens, things still seem to go wrong. In fact, many of your efforts to do right seem to backfire and make things even worse. Once again, you conclude that God hates you and is out to make your life miserable.

Let’s examine the notion that God may hate you and see if it actually holds up.

DOES GOD HATE?

The answer to that question is yes. God explicitly states that He hates things in Proverbs 6:16-19. However, the things on that list are not people, but particular sins, such as murder and pride. God hates those things because each of them directly attacks what God loves. In Zechariah 8:17, God once again says that he hates things, specifically evil imaginations and a false promise. Again, God doesn’t say He hated people, just what people do. Other places talk about God’s hatred, but they are all directed at actions, not people.

The only place in the Bible where God says he specifically hates someone is in Romans 9:13, which says, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” Romans 9:13 is a quote of Malachi 1:2-3. This specifically references the fact that God chose Jacob over Esau and chose Jacob’s descendants as His people instead of Esau’s. It is a comparison, more than intent to do Esau harm. In fact, Esau’s descendants became a mighty and a great nation for many centuries after this.

JESUS COMMANDS US TO HATE

Interestingly enough, Jesus commands us to hate our own family in Luke 14:26. But once again, this is less about thinking ill toward our family and more about choosing Jesus over them. If we can’t choose Jesus over our family, then we can’t serve Him to our full capacity, and we will struggle to keep our priorities right.

The concept of hatred in these examples is that of choosing one over another, not of thinking ill or desiring ill of someone. In other words, our love can be so great for someone that it may seem like “hate” when we always choose the one we love over someone else. In that context, I hate all women expect my wife. I choose her over every other woman. I will go to her first when she has a need. In fact, I will try to please her first and more often. I choose to give her all of me and not to some other woman. You can say then that I hate all other women — in that context.

DOES GOD REALLY HATE YOU?

No. God does not hate you. He may hate what you do. He may hate your choices. God may hate what you think about. He may hate your sin. But God does not hate you.

The problem is that you are equating comfort, peace, prosperity, and ease with God’s love. They don’t necessarily go together. God loved Job, but he also allowed Job to suffer. Yet God loved Job. Jesus loved John the Baptist and allowed his head to be cut off. God loved the Apostle Paul, but allowed Paul to be persecuted often and eventually killed. The list could go on and on.

God’s love for you is evident in how He chose you, not in how He makes your life easy. Yes, God choose you. He chose to send His Son to die on a Cross — for you! But it doesn’t stop there. Sometimes, God chooses us to represent Him in ways that invite adversity and suffering as Job discovered.

John 15:19 tells us that because Jesus chose us, the world will naturally hate us. So by being loved, that love will invite hatred from other sources. All the disciples were persecuted and most were martyred. Jesus loved them all greatly, yet they suffered greatly because of that love. Because Satan hates God, he will naturally hate those whom God loves, becoming our adversary that seeks to devour us (1 Peter 5:8).

HOW TO KNOW AND EXPERIENCE GOD’S LOVE

It is not that God hates you, but that you don’t recognize His love for you. That is the real problem. Since you equate love with lack of suffering, you won’t recognize the love of God that is active in your life. You’ll always misinterpret it.

We can’t experience God’s love because we are too upset when things don’t go our way or according to our plans. Hardship is hard, and your focus on the unfairness of your situation will blind you to God’s love.

Here are some things you can do:

  1. Have an actual dynamic walk with God. How is your prayer life? How is your Bible reading? If these areas are suffering, you will not be able to see life through spiritual eyes. How can you see God’s love under such circumstances?
  2. Change your expectations. God is not a genie in a bottle. He is not obligated to give you a life of ease. If you want to find comfort and peace in your trials, then stop blaming God for the evil in your life and start seeing the opportunities that your circumstances have afforded you. Seeing these opportunities will change your perspective.
  3. Learn to be thankful. You cannot experience or recognize God’s love when you are wallowing in self-pity. Thankful people are happy people. Their attitudes on life are so much different. Matthew 5:11-12 tells us to rejoice when we are persecuted. Why? Because that persecution puts us in an elite class of people and shows that our life has meaning and that we are being effective. Why would Satan worry about an ineffective Christian?
  4. Invest in a cause bigger than yourself. If you really want to experience God’s love, then you need to take your eyes off yourself and see the larger picture. Tools in my workshop that I like get the most use, which means they take the most abuse. However, because I like them, I also take care of them. It is a strange dichotomy. They get the most wear and tear, but they also get my attention more than a tool I don’t use. Can God use you? What are you involved in that is bigger than you?

If you do just those four things, you will find yourself experiencing the love of God in ways you never dreamed. Once that happens, you’ll never again wonder if God loves you. You’ll know that He does.

6 Comments

Ben
Reply

A good single man like me was punished by God with the single life, even though i never wanted to be. Didn’t God say that man Shouldn’t Be Alone? Why were so many millions of other people very blessed and lucky to be married with a family?

July 5, 2019
Greg Baker
Reply

@Ben

I’ve given much thought and prayer to this issue as I am the current single’s pastor at my church. There is a call, not a punishment, where God calls a man or woman to a single life. This calling is unique and special. Most of the disciples were single. Jesus was single. Many of the great men in the Bible were single, such as Daniel and possibly Elijah and Elisha. I personally believe that God calls a certain percent of the human population to be single to do what a married man could never do. The Apostle Paul was emphatic about this as described in 1 Corinthians 7. During a time of heavy persecution, Paul thought it best not to be married or have a family, knowing it is much easier for a single man to serve God where a married man could never do so. In this regard, being single is not a punishment. It is a blessing. An opportunity to do what you could never do as a married man.

However, I doubt you’ll find peace with this perspective seeing as you believe it to be punishment. Such an outlook will control your perceptions, which shapes your attitudes, and which will then dictate your behavior. I challenge you to reconsider your perceptions on the issue. I’ve found the best way to move forward in a situation that is outside my control is to surrender and give it wholly over to the Lord, to stop trying to force it to be different. It is in that moment of true surrender that I’ve found the strength of the Lord and learned the lesson I needed to learn.

On another note, there are three types of single men that Jesus described in Matthew 19:12.

  1. The single man who were so born from their mother’s womb. These are likely those that never have or had the desire to get married or have a family. Clearly not you.
  2. The single man who was made so by others. This could be you in that you have met no one up to this point willing to or able to marry you. This could also mean a physical change brought on by man as well. This is not described as right or wrong–though there are many situations where making someone single could be construed as wrong–it is described simply as a fact, one that must be dealt with.
  3. The single man who chooses the single life on purpose for the Kingdom of God’s sake. This also seems not to be you. But such a man perceives that he can do more for the Lord as a single man, go where he could never take a wife or children, and be something for others that he could never be as a married man. So he chooses the single life for Christ’s sake.

The Bible often calls these men, all three of them, eunuchs. The Bible uses this term to describe all the single life, not just the concept of being castrated. Regardless, God has a unique promise and blessing for eunuchs described in Isaiah 56:4-5, one only given to someone who lives the single life.

Since I am married my self with four children, I freely admit I do not know the pain and frustration you face. But all of us, all Christians, have our own pain and frustration we face, areas that we feel are unfair, not right, and require strong shoulders to bear such burdens. You are neither unique nor alone. I suggest a reading and study of these Scripture passages may help your perception of the issue: 2 Corinthians 4:7-18 and Romans 5:1-5.

Let me finish by saying that God does NOT hate you. He loves you more than you can imagine. Just because you have not gotten something you so desperately want does not mean that God does not love you. With the blessings and opportunities that come with the single life, I think the issue is more of your perceptions than a matter of God punishing you. Besides, you aren’t dead yet. You never know what lies in your future. I would be content to wait if it means marrying the right person than to force the issue and marry wrongly. Trust me. Although I am happily married, I have counseled many who are not. Your life can be a whole lot worse than being unmarried. You could be married to the wrong person. God bless you. I will be praying for you.

July 5, 2019
David
Reply

You stated in this article: ” Invest in a cause bigger then yourself. If you really want to experience God’ love then you need to take your eyes off yourself an see the bigger picture.”

Well we did exactly that and now I ask you to please pray earnestly and fervently for my family and I. Following God’s call on my life left us homeless, destitute and in despair. Our children were greatly harmed. God failed on His promises to us and we did not fail Him.

Everyday I ask my Heavenly Father to take me home so that my family can be set free. Until you experience great traumatic loss at the hands of God you never will understand the deep sorrow so many of His Children face today and everyday.
God needs to show up in our lives and be faithful just as He declares Himself to be.

How many days and years I have woken early to declare Jeremiah ” Great is Your faithfullness…” only to be disappointed and thrown down to the ground.

Was the hope that He poured into Job’s life the only person and time He was either able or interested in helping???
When He walked this earth and healed and blessed – was that it???
Is the Season of Trials & Tribulation 1Peter 1:6 our only expectancy from Him while on this earth?

November 4, 2019
Greg Baker
Reply

To begin with, there is no response I can make that will be accepted. I have not lived your life, made your choices, or been where you have been. Thus, any response I make will inevitably be countered by some knowledge that I don’t have but that you do. For example, you claim that you “did exactly that” in regard to investing in a cause greater than yourself. There is no way for me to know the full veracity of that claim–although your entire comment is about how God failed you, how you are suffering, how your family suffers, how God let you down (which, honestly, doesn’t seem like you are living for something greater than yourself). Thus, anything I say to counter the full extent of your claim will easily be rejected by you. You will not like the rest of what I have to say.

I want to be encouraging, to tell you that God’s love has not failed you, but I fear from the little I’ve read here that you won’t believe it. From what I’ve read, you’ve already made up your mind. You’ve determined that God has failed you. You’ve come to believe that you did everything right and God didn’t keep His promises. Nothing I say will change your mind. I can only say that through the trials I’ve gone through, I have never felt as if God has let me down or failed.

The point of serving God is not to be blessed. If the whole goal of doing something greater than yourself is so that you won’t be homeless, destitute, and in despair, then your perspective is wrong. We should not serve God because God will bless us. We serve God because it is right to do so–no matter the consequences. I believe, from the little I’ve seen of your thoughts, that you had unrealistic expectations–treating God as if He was some sort of genie in a bottle or like a gum-ball machine. You put your quarter in and now you expect to get your gumball. Such a view will never work. You will always feel God has failed you. You will always believe He has not kept His promises.

You referenced Job, but Job understood the difference that you seem not to be able to grasp. No matter what happened to him or the suffering he went through, he never sinned or charged God foolishly (Job 1:22). In fact, he understood that God wasn’t obligated to bless him (Job 1:21), and when his wife, who also suffered greatly alongside her husband, demanded that he curse God and die (something you seem to want to do), he replied, “Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” (Job 2:10).

Doubtless you have suffered–whether as a result of your own bad decision making or at the hands of godless men. But before you start blaming God, you may want to remember that Jesus suffered greatly so that you would not have to go to hell. No matter how greatly you suffer on earth, if you have trusted Jesus as your Savior, then you have an eternal home in heaven. You may want to remember that Paul suffered greatly in his service and he rejoiced in his suffering, knowing that he was accomplishing something so much more than gaining human comforts. You may want to read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and know that many people willingly gave up everything for God–expecting nothing in return. You may want to remember that you weren’t put on this earth to be comfortable.

I must apologize for sounding insensitive to your situation. I will indeed pray for you and your family, but I do advise a different approach to serving God. Serving Him is worth doing because of what He has done for you–sending Jesus to die for your sin–not because of what He might do for you–give you comfort on this earth. It is so much bigger than that. I do know that God didn’t turn Job’s captivity until he first prayed for his friends. That isn’t a promise to you. That is simply a fact and provides some insight into God’s nature. Perhaps if you stop blaming God and seek more to be thankful for your situation you may see the love of God that was always there but hidden behind your pain and anger.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 12:7-10, “And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”

Be strong in Christ, brother.

November 23, 2019
TJ
Reply

I have been blessed in life with many great material possessions and an accepting family that is always here to support me even as I struggle; all of my life-sustaining needs have always been met in abundance, I am fit and healthy, I have always been successful in all of my endeavors (though not always in ways I’ve expected), and I have never truly been alone (though I am often lonely).

I know in my heart of hearts that God’s love is here.

I don’t care about my things, or having money, or fame or anything like that….if life is a cake, that’s just frosting to make it sweet, but it doesn’t make any difference in how it fills us and it certainly doesn’t add any substantial nutrients (and in excess it may be fattening).

One might look at another’s piece and say “he got more frosting! It’s not fair!”, but that’s only the material: wealth and possessions and worldly successes and fame and our bodies. I don’t think any of that matters to God, but the bread underneath is what he sees and nurtures, because he knows that’s the part that’s good for us, and when we think God hates us it’s because we’re only looking at the top of the cake; we can’t see the bread with our human senses, so we sometimes forget it’s there. Ultimately, though, it’s our own choice to either savor it or let it crumble away.

I appreciate reading your comments and your article, Greg. You seem to stay focused on God’s love despite the hardships of life that we all encounter and must endure. It is difficult to stay focused on light when everything seems dark, and I often do find myself wondering “where is God’s love?” But I always have faith that everything beneath the surface is bigger and better, because that’s where God dwells.

December 30, 2019
Greg Baker
Reply

Well said. Thank you for reading. There is a lot of truth to the fact that we often judge God’s love based on what we think God did for others. We look at someone else’s life, possessions, and opportunities, compare them to our own, and then judge God’s love toward us based on the difference. This is always a mistake (2 Corinthians 10:12).

December 31, 2019

Leave a comment

Categories