The Alpha of Malice

UV 3086/10000 The Alpha of Malice
Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,
I Peter 2 v 1
God created the world with all its beauty to be a wonderland but mankind has made it “malice in blunderland”. People are caught up in so many forms or manifestations of hatred and malice- racial, religious, class-based, caste-based, language-based, ideology-based and so on. Much of the violence and conflicts in this world are due to these forms of malice and hatred. Soon after sin came into this world, envy caused Cain to kill his own brother Abel. A moral failure grew to become a full blown crime within a generation of creation.

We have been saved not by corruptible things like the silver, gold or precious things of this world but by means of the incorruptible seed of the word of God. We are not born again by the corruptible seed of man but the seed of God. These two aforesaid statements mean that we are able to overcome both environmental influence as well as genetic influence. As “born again” believers of Christ or a new creation, we are to re-gain the innocence of the new born child by casting away all forms of malice- like deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander and so on. These arise due to our former lusts and pride that controlled us. But now that we have come into the grace of God through Christ, we share in His power to lay aside or do away with all forms of malice and instead be charitable to all, especially our enemies, those who oppose us without reason, those who attack us without provocation. We are to have the understanding of the mature adult but the innocence of the child in matters of lust and evil. We have to be careful what we store in our hearts for the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. If it is full of the love of God, we will speak wholesome, helpful words not hurtful or harmful words. We will not allow our mouths to be fountains of duplicity, using the same tongue to praise God and to revile or malign man.
The uni-verse states that we can as easily as taking off our clothes, remove the traces of malice, envy, deceit, greed, pride from our lives. Instead, we should wear the shining armour of light or righteousness that the Lord gives us in the salvation experience. We need to be sensitive to the presence of these sources of malice in us, the surfacing of the iceberg of our old nature and use the axe of the sword of God- the word to chop it off. We have access to the power of the Holy Spirit, the spirit of love, power and self control at work in us to make it possible and easy.