Rise Above the Evil

My life as a pastor has taken me to some amazing places. I’ve cried out to Jesus at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, seen Stonehenge, the Taj Mahal, the Amazon and, yes, Graceland!  But a major player on my geographic bucket list was Mount St. Helens in Washington State. The wonder of my childhood, it’s most notorious for its catastrophic eruption on May 18, 1980.

I was 13 years old, and it was a game-changer for me. That was the year I really started reading because I couldn’t get enough information about what had happened, especially the landslide, the largest in recorded history, where a mountain moved 17 miles and took 57 people with it. Yes, I was attracted to the devastation and the death toll.

Our flesh is naturally attracted to “bad” and is fascinated by evil. There is something about us that is impressed with it. I’m no psychologist, but I suspect it has something to do with our survival instincts and how we want to understand the things we fear.

Whatever it is, it causes traffic in the northbound lane to slow down when there’s a wreck in the southbound lane. It causes ratings to skyrocket during disasters and scandals, and the tabloid racks to empty when a celebrity gets divorced or when a grandfather decides to become a female sex object.

What’s more amazing is when we can’t get enough impressive bad things to look at, we invent new forms of evil to entertain us. We throw in a little sensuality and turn these monsters into romantic attractions. Face it – we love bad, and that’s not a good thing.

“And do not be conformed to this world… Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.” Romans 12:2,9

It’s important to learn to no longer love what the world loves. Hold tight to goodness instead of evil. Knowing Jesus and following Him is simply this: love what God loves and hate what He hates.