Love Your Neighbor
Everybody loves something a little weird. Watching movies with subtitles on. The taste of orange juice right after brushing your teeth. Bananas while they're still green. We all have our quirks. But there's one command that isn't quirky at all, and it shows up again and again as the thread running through the whole Bible: love.
I believe everything we say and everything we do should be filtered through love. A love for God and a love for people. Jesus made that unmistakably clear when someone tried to test him with a question about which command mattered most.
Matthew 22:36-40 (NLT)
"Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?" Jesus replied, "'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments."
Read that again. The entire law and all the prophets hang on these two commands. Love God. Love people. This is red letter stuff. These are the words of our Savior, and he's telling us that everything filters through love.
Love Is the Whole Point
Paul picks up this same idea in 1 Corinthians 13, right after spending a whole chapter talking about spiritual gifts. Gifts like prophecy, faith, and generosity aren't bad things. They're powerful. But Paul makes a stunning claim: without love, none of it means anything.
"If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal." (1 Corinthians 13:1, NLT)
Think about what he's saying. Speaking in tongues minus love equals a clanging cymbal, annoying and hollow. The gift of prophecy and knowledge minus love equals useless. The gift of faith minus love equals no value. Giving everything you own to the poor minus love equals nothing at all.
Why does love matter so much? Because the gifts of the Spirit without love eventually lead to destruction. They're important. They're useful. We should see them at work whenever believers gather. But used without love, they become about you instead of about God, and that's a road that ends badly. Pride goes before destruction, and using our gifts apart from love is rooted in pride.
So it's worth asking honestly: is what I'm doing, inside and outside of church, actually full of love?
Who Is My Neighbor?
Jesus gets asked a follow-up question in Luke 10. A religious expert wants to know what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus points him back to the same two commands: love God, love your neighbor. But the man pushes further and asks, "Who is my neighbor?" That question sets up one of the most well known stories in all of Scripture, the parable of the Good Samaritan.
A man is traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho when he's attacked by robbers, stripped, beaten, and left half dead on the side of the road. Three people pass by, and each one shows us something different about how we respond to the needs around us.
The priest sees the man and crosses to the other side of the road. Scripture doesn't tell us why. Maybe he was busy. Maybe he had somewhere important to be, doing important work. That's often where we live too. We're busy with kids, with jobs, with our own ambitions and plans, and we get so focused on our own lane that when we see someone in the ditch, we justify moving to the other side. We tell ourselves we just don't have time.
The temple assistant does a little better, or so it seems. He walks over and takes a closer look. But then he keeps going too. This is the person who slows down just enough to see what happened, maybe out of curiosity more than compassion, and then moves on without actually helping.
The Samaritan, someone the culture of the day looked down on, is the one who stops. He feels compassion, which is simply that natural response of wanting to help someone who's hurting. He bandages the man's wounds, puts him on his own donkey, takes him to an inn, and even pays extra to make sure he's cared for. He was willing to be inconvenienced. He had places to be too, but none of that mattered more than helping someone in need.
Jesus asks the religious expert which of the three acted like a neighbor. The answer is obvious: the one who showed mercy. And Jesus says, "Now go and do the same."
What Love Looks Like Up Close
There's a story I read some time ago about a police officer who, while on patrol, came across a pregnant woman using drugs behind a convenience store. Instead of simply arresting her, he felt compelled to step in. He and his wife ended up adopting her baby, and he used his own resources to help her get into a recovery program. That's not a comfortable, convenient kind of love. That's the kind of love that shows up in the ditch and stays.
Proximity is powerful. When we get close enough to actually see the needs around us, we have a choice to make. Do we scurry to the other side of the road? Do we take a quick look and move on? Or do we lean in?
Here's how you know whether you truly love people: what's your response when you learn someone is struggling? Do you invest your time? Your energy? Your finances? Do you share your life with them? That's what loving our neighbor looks like. Not a feeling, but a response.
The two greatest commandments haven't changed. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Everything else we do should filter through that.
This Week's Challenge
Don't just read this and move on. Put it into practice.
This week, ask God to open your eyes to one person in the ditch, someone you might normally pass by because you're busy, distracted, or just not paying attention. It might be a coworker having a hard week, a neighbor who could use a hand, or a stranger you'd usually scroll past.
When you see them, don't cross to the other side of the road. Don't just take a quick look and move on. Stop. Ask what they need. Then do something about it, even if it costs you time, money, or a change in your plans.
At the end of the week, ask yourself: did I love my neighbor, or did I just walk by?
