Friday, February 25, 2011

Love Your Neighbor

“Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

It's really easy to recite this verse.  And it's really easy to look at it and say, why, I do love my neighbor.  I love my friends, they're pretty easy to love, actually.  But what about all those other people who are not your friends?  It's the difficult ones that Jesus was talking about here.  You shall love your neighbor as yourself... just think about that one for a little while.  Yesterday a friend of mine shared a video about loving other people on Facebook.  If I can find it again, I'm going to share it at the end of my post today, because I think it's a very real message for the body of Christ today.

It's easy to love family and friends.  Sure, sometimes they may be exasperating, but you always come back around to loving them, no matter what may happen along the way. But what about all those other people you come across in your circle of activities?  Or even strangers- what about that family a few rows back from you in the movie theater who's kids don't seem to know what quiet means.   The love of Jesus is not just meant for our happy little bubble of personal space and life.  It's meant for all.  We are meant to take that love and share it in every avenue of life.  We are to give it away.

Sometimes that can mean incredible patience on our part, and when God opens our eyes to someone who needs some love, that's one of the first things that usually gets tried.  Patience and love can often go hand in hand, but once we can manage to find some patience, love may not be far behind, and we can make a world of difference to the world around us that is hurting.  

Sometimes that love is something simple- a mom at an activity needs just 30 minutes to run an errand, and love can be shown by offering to keep an eye on a child for that 30 minutes.  Or maybe, that love is simply a few words expressed in appreciation for a job well done.  Words can go a very long way in showing love one-to-another.  Simple actions as well, how about the next time you're grocery shopping and dashing to the checkout, you let that other person go in front of you. 

The love that Jesus shared with us is so priceless, certainly we can take a moment each day and share with those around us.

The video I spoke about before?  I guess I can't put it on here.  However, I think this link will take you to it.  As we head into the weekend, let's all work on putting on our Jesus glasses and seeing all the places around us where we can share love.

Love Glasses

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