Love Your Neighbor

Last time, we looked at verse 37 from Matthew 22. This is the passage where  Jesus commanded us to love the Lord your God. Today I want to dive into verse 39 where Jesus expands on the first command and instructs us to “Love our neighbor as ourself.”

The first question many of us have when reading this is “Well, who is my neighbor?” The answer to the question can be found in Luke10. This chapter contains a similar interaction between Jesus and a religious leader of the day. This section begins with the religious leader asking Jesus how to inherit eternal life. In his response Jesus asks the religious leader, “What is written in the Law, how do you read it?” (Luke 10: 26, NIV) The religious leader gives the same response that we saw from Jesus earlier. Jesus then responds, “You have answered correctly, do this and you will live.” (Luke 10: 28, NIV)

After hearing this the religious leader goes on to ask the very same question most of us do; “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds in verses 30-37 with what many of us know as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. In this parable a man has been robbed, beaten, and left for dead. Three men pass by the injured man, but only the third stops to help. Jesus ends the parable by instructing us all to be like the one who helped.

Most of us don’t have an issue loving those who love us back. Even on our worst days we are still able to love those people whether they are family, friends, or even just people who we’ve deemed enough like us to “deserve our love.” The issue for most of us is the people that don’t love us back. What about those who have hurt us? What about those who have gone so far as to be cruel to us? What about our enemies?

While not easy to stomach, the answer is found rather clearly in Luke 6: 32-36. In this passage of scripture Jesus says, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” (NIV)

The moral of the story is that God is truly glorified when we love those who don’t love us back. How on earth do we do it? First, we have to go back to Genesis 1 and understand we are all created by Him, and we should reflect his love. How can we reflect his love if we don’t at a bare minimum recognize that these “enemies” are also a part of his creation? What then? We have to ask ourself; what is our primary purpose? Back to creation, it is to bring glory and honor to Him that created us. Luke 6 told us how to do that. Still seem impossible? Lastly, and possibly most importantly, remember this is the second command. The first was to love the Lord your God will all your heart soul and mind. Spoiler alert - you cannot fulfill this second command until you fulfill the first. It wasn’t an accident Jesus answered the way he did.

Please understand, this isn’t easy. I’m preaching to the choir even as I type these words. There is a constant highlight reel playing in my head featuring those people I find easy to love and those that I do not. At the end of the day, it goes back to what I said last week, and why I chose these verses as the foundation of this ministry. IF we can get these two things right, then everything else begins to fall into place; not because they are easy, but because it is what God has commanded us to do.

God Bless!

Phil Johnson

Founder, J23 Ministries