When did being a Christian require us to be pleasant, positive, and perky ALL the time? Was Jesus any of those things ALL the time? No. Jesus was about His Father’s business, which was to extend God’s Covenant of perfect love to all people. And with a Covenant of perfect love comes a whole heap of hates–particularly against anything that threatens or hinders the beloved. The Scriptures say that Jesus loves what is right and hates what is evil. And God loves this about Jesus. So let’s be more like Jesus in loving and hating precisely what He does. (Cheers to Steven Manuel for much of this vocabulary.)