And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:30-31)
“Love your neighbor.” This is one of the commandments that Jesus expressly told his followers. He placed this command with equal importance as loving God with all we have in us. That tells me that Jesus takes this very seriously. Before you turn me off, this is not a time for me to condemn “mean” people, but rather to look more closely at the words of Jesus to help us achieve this commandment.
Let’s look at the actual scripture to better understand. “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:30-31).
To many of you, this is a very familiar scripture. We first learned this in Sunday School so we would start to look at the feelings of others more than ourselves. If you weren’t raised in church, the world also saw the importance of this commandment. Remember the “Golden Rule”? This does work in helping to create empathy and a peaceful world. It’s God’s law, of course it works!
Ok. Why are there so many people being hurt and having to deal with gossip, backbiting, and truly acts of hatred? The answer lies in the latter part of the verse 31 above; “…as yourself.” How can you love your neighbor correctly and truly if you really don’t love yourself? OUCH! I believe that the words of God are completely inspired and spoken on purpose, for a purpose. God did not just throw that in because it sounded self-righteous. What do you see when you look at yourself? Not only the physical, but what do you see on the inside? If you struggle with loving yourself, our human nature draws us to look outside of ourselves to justify our feelings. Many will look at others and either belittle them in their minds, or continue to confirm their self-defeating talk of how bad off they really are. Sometimes we make ourselves feel better by looking at others in the church and finding things that are worse than what we feel like are our faults. This leads to the gossip and backbiting. On the other side, we may look at some and feel that they have it all together and we will never be as “good” as them.
Jesus told us that there is only one that is “good”. Any of these actions are comparison. In Galatians chapter 6 we are advised not to compare ourselves with others. When we compare ourselves with others we take our focus off of Jesus and on to man. Man is not God. Doing this causes us to turn man into a god. The Devil loves when we do this. It makes us ineffective and useless in the plan of God! We must stop looking at each other in this light of comparison! God understands you better than you do. He knew that Satan’s role in our lives is to be our “accuser”. Many of us are focusing too much on how short we fall in our relationship with God. This leads to feeling inadequate and sometimes worthless. Let me help you with these feelings…YOU ARE INADEQUATE! If we were adequate, we wouldn’t need Jesus! Jesus loves us in our inadequacy. Remember, “while we were yet sinners…” It was during this time that Jesus died for us. This is an awesome fact! We are loved by Jesus even if we struggle loving ourselves.
Have you ever questioned “how could God really, truly love me?” This is a question that we may never be able to completely understand in our human minds. First we have to accept the fact that God is love. Where we love as an action, God is love. This love is an act of being, like I am female and human and nothing I can do will make me not these things. I don’t have to decide to be human when I get up in the morning (although there are some in my family who believe I should). I just am. That is how our God is love. I challenge you to look at yourself through the eyes of Jesus. This is a very liberating way to see yourself. He finds you full of worth and purpose. He knows every part of you and still loves you! He made you to be His because he wants you. Jesus died for us so we could have a relationship with the Father just like Adam did. Being saved from Hell is a byproduct of this. Jesus accepts you the way you are and doesn’t compare you with the people around you. Each person’s relationship with Jesus is personal, just as if you are the only one in His life. He can do that because He is God.When we see ourselves as the valued person that God does, it will cause us to see our neighbor differently. We will have the love that Jesus told us to have. We don’t have pity for people, but love. Jesus pitied the religious because they thought they had it under control and right, but He loved the people who recognized that His love was what they needed. Love yourself because God loves you more than we can ever say, then we can truly “love our neighbor”.
Christian Web News - In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a Christian shopkeeper was gunned down Wednesday while he was heading to work, according to a local official.
Christian Web News - First, a San Diego pastor was told that he could not have home Bible studies without a Major Use Permit. Then, a church in Gilbert, Arizona was told that they were violating zoning codes by meeting in a home. Now a third church is being told they cannot have home meetings.
Christian Web News - Chaplains from the Billy Graham Rapid Response Team were on the ground in Port-au-Prince less than 24 hours after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake shook the country of Haiti on Jan. 12.
Christian Web News - So many people across our nation, young people especially, are Biblically illiterate. Confusion and intimidation of the Bible's length and complexity causes many people to give up on reading the Bible altogether.
Christian Web News - According to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF), within the next 24 hours, officials in southern Laos plan to burn temporary shelters built by expelled Christians unless they deny their faith.
Christian Web News - Fortunately, the nation's first “hate speech” bill has been killed by the Massachusetts Senate. The Joint Education Committee's Martha Walz and Robert O'Leary added the provision to an anti-bullying bill. Had it passed, it would have punished any criticism of homosexuality with a term in jail or a fine.
Christian Web News - On Wednesday, Republican senators said that House members who vote for the Senate-passed health care bill would “own it,” and that nothing would be changed through reconciliation. Which includes prohibiting federal (taxpayer) funds from being used to pay for abortions.
Christian Web News - On Sunday, on the streets of multiple cities in Spain, tens of thousands of people protested a new law that would allow abortion on demand.
Christian Web News - On Tuesday, a European court ordered Turkey to remove the religious affiliation section from citizens’ identification cards, calling the practice a violation of human rights.
Christian Web News - SBC International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin is making a strong case for change within his denomination as he gets ready to walk away from the command of its missions arm following 17 years of service.
Christian Web News - Parents are being urged by a national coalition of organizations committed to preserving parental rights in public education, restoring academic integrity to public education, and removing partisan political protests from the classroom to call their children out of school on the Day of Silence if their school is permitting students to refuse to speak in class.
Christian Web News - A new survey found that not even half of churchgoers in America plan on inviting non-churchgoers to Easter worship service this year.
Rev 13:16-18 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
Christian Web News - At a time when greed and corruption seem to run rampant and morals seem nonexistent, many people wonder where to look for role models.
For the millions of junior high, high school and college students heading back to school, the idea of returning to the classroom may be met with mixed emotions.
Christian Web News - Jesus has a way of getting right to the point, doesn't He? There was certainly no mincing of words, He came right out and said, "why are you fearful?" and then went on to say, "O you of little faith." You don't have to read between the lines to see what He was saying, they had little faith.
Christian Web News - Galatians 3:13-14. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree''), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Christian Web News - SBC International Mission Board President Jerry Rankin is making a strong case for change within his denomination as he gets ready to walk away from the command of its missions arm following 17 years of service.
Christian Web News - Parents are being urged by a national coalition of organizations committed to preserving parental rights in public education, restoring academic integrity to public education, and removing partisan political protests from the classroom to call their children out of school on the Day of Silence if their school is permitting students to refuse to speak in class.
Christian Web News - A new survey found that not even half of churchgoers in America plan on inviting non-churchgoers to Easter worship service this year.
Rev 13:16-18 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. 
