Shortly after I heard the story I told in my last blog, our pastor preached a sermon so closely related to what took place in that story, that I decided to continue on the same topic here. So I want to thank Pastor Matt Coplin (formerly) of Boonsboro Presbyterian Church in Lynchburg, Virginia for directing me to many of the biblical references I am using, and for the privilege of sharing some of the same points he made in his sermon on April 18, 2021.                                                                                           

We all know we are commanded to “love one another” many times throughout Scripture. We have read it so often, and used it when speaking to others (especially when teaching children), that we often diminish the extraordinariness of actual love. The idea of loving others gets translated in our heads as being nice and kind. We love our families and our friends. It is easy to do so because they are our people, unless they hurt us or betray us—and then we often start to rationalize, using our uninspired human reasoning to justify distancing ourselves, cooling the relationship, and perhaps even ending it. 

That same human impulse to ignore and not engage, to break away, is often our knee-jerk reaction when confronted by certain groups of people: criminals, homeless people begging on the street, elderly people, the mentally ill, those of other races, those living lifestyles we do not approve of, or literally anyone who makes us feel uncomfortable. It is easy then to manipulate our own thinking and become convinced that there are exceptions to loving one another that give us the right to not involve ourselves, or to demand respect and justice. 

Similarly, the mindset of the lawyer who boldly confronted Jesus was to reason his way out of believing that Jesus spoke truth.  In Luke 10, this “good” lawyer asked Jesus, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” (v. 25).  Jesus, knowing the man's heart, asked him what the law said about this. The man cited Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18 about loving God with “all your heart, …soul, …and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” The man actually knew the right answer, and Jesus even said he had answered correctly. But this lawyer continued to make his case, trying to find a way around true obedience. And so he asked Jesus—“Who is my neighbor?” (v. 29). 

Jesus then told the story of the Good Samaritan. The story in which the “good” people, those whose actual roles were to help those in need—the priest and the Levite—passed by the man beaten and dying on the side of the road, crossing to the other side to clearly avoid him; while the despised man of another ethnicity went out of his way to care for the man until he was well. Even the “good” lawyer had to admit that the Samaritan was the only one obeying God's law. Jesus then admonished him that going forward, he too, must be as the Samaritan, showing mercy to others. Not exactly the answer the lawyer was hoping for.

True love is not something that can be manipulated for our pleasure and benefit. Rather, it is an action, that like all actions, culminates as a result of our thoughts. Thoughts which are motivated by our hearts—our deepest longings. To truly love others is what we as Christians are called to do, and it should be the desire of our hearts. If this is our goal, then loving will become a mindset—where we are looking for opportunities in which to exercise it. Our desire to show love relies on us to give it freely under all circumstances, not as a reaction to how we are treated.

 There are not certain people, or certain groups of people, on which we are to lavish love. But as we have established, all people are our “neighbors.” Love is to be especially present in the church. Galatians 6, a chapter that is devoted to teaching how to lovingly care for fellow believers, stipulates in verse 10: “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” That sounds easy enough for us to accept and obey, because after all, we are all of the same family as children of God. Yet, how often we really struggle to simply be kind to one another!  Sometimes it is easier to drift into cliques, thinking of ourselves as better than other fellow believers.

The real meaning of love goes deeper still. Jesus talks about the greatest commandment and the second greatest commandment in Mark 12:29-31. “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.”

It is interesting to me that the word “love” is key to both the first and second commandments. We tend to think of the Ten Commandments as rigorous rules that must be followed, or there will be harsh consequences. A legal list of do's and don'ts. After all, they were given to Moses on a mountain top to a people who were too sinful to even approach God on their own, and who soon wearied of waiting for Moses to come down from the mountain, thereby pretty much breaking all ten before they had even been presented. Plagues and death followed their disobedience. Perhaps our judgment of the Israelites and the condemnation they received because they did not love God or their neighbor, stems from an unconscious guilt of our own—the same lack of desire on our part to rightly love God and others.

In reality, the commandments are all about love. Loving God foremost. Recognizing Him, knowing Him, seeing Him for Who He really is. With everything in you—all you've got. Thoughts, mindsets, and actions. What makes Him worthy of that? For starters, He is our redeemer. He has provided a way out from our debt of sin and our rightful condemnation because He loves us. That's the summation of the first four commandments, and loving others is the summation of the last six. Loving others means you'll honor your parents, you won't malign or kill anyone, you won't cheat on your spouse, you won't steal, you won't lie or gossip about your neighbor, you won't want anything that's not rightfully yours. Because you'll be too busy loving everyone instead. 

That love of God for us was manifested in Jesus. Jesus is the answer! God's love has been shown to us in multiple ways, but is certainly best shown in Jesus. We are indebted to Him. What does He want from us as a result of His sacrificial and abundant love for us? To love others—because, you see, in loving others you are spreading His love. You are demonstrating Who Christ is when you love others. 

Paul tells us we now owe love to one another. “Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,' and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:7-10).

Our self-centered human nature has made giving love to others without getting anything in return unacceptable. That's why it is so important to remember that it was God who loved us first. God—who is Himself Love. We would have no idea of love, and we'd be unloved entirely, were it not for Him. All the love songs in the world do not even begin to describe the depth of true love—God's love. We who have experienced and recognized His love in Jesus, know that. But the world does not. So Jesus told his disciples, which include us: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35).