Anyone who's ever been in a church setting for very long has heard the phrase "Love your neighbor." And that's because loving your neighbor is a really, really big deal. Jesus called it the second most important commandment ever. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:31)
Then there's the parable Jesus told about who our neighbor is. For the purposes of this article, I'm just going to give a summary, but it can be found in Luke 10:25-37. A lawyer (then, a man who studied the law of God) asked Jesus what he could do to inherit eternal life, and Jesus basically said to him, "You tell me." The man replied, ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘'your neighbor as yourself.’ Jesus told him that he was right, but the guy had another question. Who is my neighbor? Jesus told him a story about a man who was on a journey, and he was beaten and robbed on his way. A priest came by and saw him, but left him for dead. A Levite (a man of the tribe of Levi, very much like a priest) did the same. Then came a Samaritan. Jews and Samaritans hated each other. Even though the dying man was a Jew, the Samaritan gave him the best medical care he could, brought him to an inn, and paid extensively for his care. Jesus said that this was being a neighbor, and how we should live.
Finally, there's the popular verse in Matthew 5: But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, (Matthew 5:44)
That's a lot of extreme loving. And as Christians, we profess to be up to the challenge, because it will be challenging. Our nature doesn't say "I love you" when someone uses us for their own gain; we don't typically seek to help people who curse us, and we don't usually pray for those who are constantly hurting us. But Christ calls us to it, so we say we will go and do it.
When people curse us, hate us, persecute us, and spitefully use us, we usually follow the words of Romans 12:17a:
Repay no one evil for evil.
But do we really love them? We often recognize that hatred is murder in God's eyes, so when it starts to grow in our hearts, we cut it off. But an absence of hate is not love. When people wrong us, we tend to ignore them instead of going out of our way to love them. If we avoid them, we won't even have the opportunity to say something nasty. If we put them out of our thoughts, we can cut off anger towards them...but then we also cut out praying for them. If we avoid them, we have no opportunity to bless them or do good to them.
In life, we have all kinds of 'enemies'; the atheist who always wants to argue, the guy who cuts you off while driving, the fellow Christian who hurts your feelings. Often they're our own friends and family members. God calls us to extremely love ALL of them, because that's what He does.
Also, there are enemies of our country. Here's something extraordinary, and somewhat hard to accept: Jesus Christ loves the men who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks just as much as He loves you. Which is enough to die an excruciating death for you. If you call yourself a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ, would you be willing to die for those men? Or to pick them up off a roadside and pay for their care? That's a tough question.
Even if we don't hate them, do we love them?
I have established that God calls us to love those we might hate. But my main reason for writing this is to point out something that we unintentionally ignore: that God also calls us to love the people we unintentionally ignore.
Proverbs 14:21a says He who despises his neighbor sins.
You might be thinking, 'I thought we were talking about ignoring people, not hating them. Despising is hating, Angie.' Well, hold on a second.
Today, the word despise means hate, just as gay means homosexual. But neither word originally meant that. As we know, gay used to mean happy. Despise used to mean something closer to scorn, disrespect, and disregard.
Even if we're doing a great job at loving those who hate us, if in our hearts we have judged that some people really just don't matter as much as others, we are guilty of sin. This is something we often do unconsciously, something tied closely to the society in which we live. If I feel strongly about my earthly family or a friend being saved, but don't really care about some kid at school I don't talk to, that's despising them. It could be a homeless man on the street, or one of your employees, or the cashier at Wal-Mart. It could be someone not so smart, or so good looking, or so fun to be around. It very well could be a family member.
He shall regard the prayer of the destitute,
And shall not despise their prayer. (Psalm 102:17)
As Christians, do we love them? Just because we don't hate someone doesn't mean that we love them.
God spoke to a church in the book of Revelation and said: (Revelation 3:15-16)
I want to call out all Christians and ask that we examine ourselves: are we lukewarm in our attitudes towards anyone? When Jesus gave the Great Commission, He instructed us to preach to ALL peoples. He gave us the ultimate example of love on the cross, for ALL people, and calls us to take up our crosses daily and follow Him. If you struggle with loving ALL people, or ANY person, I would plead with you to get on your knees before God and ask Him to give you His heart and His love for them. This may require truly humbling yourself, which isn't an easy thing. But James 4:10 says Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up. God will lift you up, and He will answer a sincere prayer.
If you want to love people, but aren't sure how, let me refer to an example Jesus gave. This story can be found in John 13:1-17. Jesus knew that the time for Him to be crucified was near, and He wanted to make a few things crystal clear to His disciples. So He laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself. After that, He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. The disciples' feet would've been, in a word, dirty. Back then, they had no bikes or cars; no planes, trains, and automobiles. They had their own feet, and animals. Those animals tended to, er, relieve themselves on the road that everyone traversed. Therefore the disciples' feet would be covered in that, as well as dirt and dust. Jesus Christ, the King of kings, the Son of God, laid aside His garments, put on a towel, and used that towel to wipe the filth off of some men's feet. (Including the feet of the man who would betray Him unto an agonizing death!) He said, For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. (John 13:15)
You might say, "Well that's great and all, but people would probably look at me weird if I randomly tried washing their feet...this doesn't help me a whole lot." You've got a point, but let's look at this story a little deeper. Jesus was and is the Lord of all, and He got down and did a little dirty work. He was giving us an example on how to love: to humble ourselves, and do things that might be very unpleasant in order to help people.
Ways you can show love might include helping out at home by washing dishes, or taking out the trash, or mowing the lawn (without being asked). Or you could do things of this nature for strangers. They're your neighbors, after all. You could give an encouraging word to someone, or reach outside your comfort zone and talk to someone new. Showing interest in another person can really cause them to open up.
Evangelizing (or telling people about Jesus) is, in a way, opening the door for them to let Jesus wash their feet. We all need Jesus to wash away all our stains from sin, to make us something new and beautiful.
Here is another parable Jesus spoke:
“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go, work today in my vineyard.’ He answered and said, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he regretted it and went. Then he came to the second and said likewise. And he answered and said, ‘I go, sir,’ but he did not go. (Matthew 21:28-30)
So what about you? As Jesus calls you to love all people, not just not hate them, are you the one who got a late start on it, or the one who says you do when in your heart you have spite? I know that in ways, I am both. But I want to be that first son, that first daughter who will go in the name of Jesus and really care about people. I want to not just care about all people, but show it in my words and in my actions. I challenge you to pray and do the same.
Thanks so much for reading, and God bless you.
All Scripture taken from the New King James Version.
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