“Neither shall the wicked dwell near thee: nor shall the unjust abide before thy eyes. Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity: thou wilt destroy all that speak a lie. The bloody and the deceitful man the Lord will abhor. But as for me in the multitude of thy mercy, I will come into thy house; I will worship towards thy holy temple, in thy fear.”
Those that love according to the ways of the world, fixated on pleasure, self, and things, are far from God, for they do not love as He loves. Without the love that is the Holy Spirit, one’s love is passing and poor, starved of true love: “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will send forth a famine into the land: not a famine of bread, nor a thirst of water, but of hearing the word of the Lord” (Amos 8:11). While the love of God shines upon the wicked and the unjust, and His eyes are upon them always: “…who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45), their eyes are shut to this merciful love, for they are turned away from Him. His love reaches out constantly, be it through people: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 28:19), through one’s own conscience: “For my iniquities are gone over my head: and as a heavy burden are become heavy upon me” (Psalm 37:5), or through nature: “O Lord, how great are thy works!” (Psalm 91:6), but these are lost on those whose eyes are infected: “The senseless man shall not know: nor will the fool understand these things” (Psalm 91:7). Now, God does not hate those that sin, for God is love, but He is turned against them in their hearts that, under His thumb, they may be pricked in their conscience and turn to His love: “Desolation is left in the city, and calamity shall oppress the gates. For it shall be thus in the midst of the earth, in the midst of the people, as if a few olives, that remain, should be shaken out of the olive tree: or grapes, when the vintage is ended. These shall lift up their voice, and shall give praise” (Isaias 24:12-14). He will also “destroy those that speak a lie,” for all heresies shall fracture themselves into nothing, unable to bear the burden of leading others into lies, and this also applies to the one pursuing God. The individual that truly seeks to love God may at some point speak gentle words that aren’t truthful, but in time the truth of God’s love will overwhelm this: “For Sion’s sake I will not hold my peace” (Isaias 62:1). This doesn’t mean that aggression will set in, for “A peaceable tongue is a tree of life” (Proverbs 15:4), but peace and truth will find expression in a delicate middle: “Mercy and truth have met each other: justice and peace have kissed” (Psalm 84:11). All untruth, iniquity, and injustice is a deprivation of true love, and therefore those are gaps in the soul in which the Holy Spirit isn’t, for He is turned away. However, this same Spirit longs to dwell in these places: “My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hollow places of the wall” (Song 2:14), to fill what is empty with love, that His love may find its fullest expression in truthful, merciful words that draw others to Christ. Now, the faithful see with horror the lack of love in the people that are far from God: “And Jesus going out saw a great multitude: and he had compassion on them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd” (Mark 6:34), and realize the greatest antidote is prayer, as well as to receive the love from God that is being rejected. In this way you will console His Heart and be able to love those that don’t know God’s love. Thus the Psalmist, embracing the endless merciful love of God, goes into the house of God: “I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: We shall go into the house of the Lord” (Psalm 121:1). This house could also be your heart, for it is the dwelling place of God: “Know you not, that you are the temple of God, and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Corinthians 3:16). In either respect, entering into the house of God with love and awe is to go before Him with fear, “for you have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear; but you have received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry: Abba” (Romans 8:15). Go before your Abba, opening yourself to the unfathomable, infinite depths of His merciful love for you. Worship Him in loving adoration in the temple that you are, awed by the mystery of His merciful love, and in overwhelmed love fall upon your knees and pray: “Give praise to the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever” (Psalm 117:1).