“The heart is deceitful above all things” means those who actually love the devil and hate God may think precisely the opposite—that they love God and hate the devil. But Puritan Richard Baxter invites us to think a little more deeply and examine our hearts to show how we may be deceiving ourselves. At the start of this Lenten season, let’s use his reflections to test our hearts to see if there isn’t a bit of hatred toward God and love of the Devil.
Baxter points out that nobody, or at least very few, actually love the devil’s cruelty in tormenting others or hating others (though you could find even those, probably not among those who think they are believers). Where we are deceived is that we think to “love the devil” means loving everything about the devil, and hating God means hating everything about God. That’s just not true. Hatred and love are demonstrated in the way we shade our appreciation and disdain. Baxter writes, “Nor is it every thing in God that is hated: none hateth his mercifulness and goodness as such.” So what do people typically hate about God?
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