"The commandments, "You shall not commit adultery," "You shall not murder," "You shall not steal," "You shall not covet," and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
(Rom 13:9-10)
Worth Repeating
"Love your neighbor as yourself."
"Love does no harm to a neighbor."
"Love does no harm to a neighbor."
"Love does no harm to a neighbor."
Prayer for Today
Thank You, Jesus, for clarifying your law -- while making it amazingly simple to understand.
Please, Lord, help us to love all of our neighbors better. Even those reading this who may not be sure just what they believe, yet.
Help us to overflow with your grace and your love, Lord. Moreso than our own selfishness and uncontrolled emotions.
Bless us with your Godly wisdom, please?
Thank You, Father, for loving us so much. Thank You for Jesus. Amen.
Addendum --
I posted the scripture above on my personal Facebook account recently. Below is a comment from a friend on their struggles with loving their neighbor.
What follows is several responses by me, to try to help. As I said to him below, this is much more of a universal problem than a 'just him' sort of problem.
I've added our conversation on FB to this blog post, hoping the additional scripture and thoughts might prove helpful to others as well.
DC (My Friend): "Hmm. Romans is a very difficult book to interpret for me, yet in some areas I understand it completely and find it enlightening. But as in Rom. 13:9-10, it is difficult to love my neighbors when they show not the same to me, when they don't deserve my love. Yet I have to bite my lip and turn my heart from not loving them. Because when I read the bible I think about the fact that god sent his only son to die for the sins of wretches like you and me when we did not deserve his love."
***
Me: Ah, but it's only hard to understand when our pride gets in the way, Dude. Seriously. Look at what you just said, for example. But... do we deserve constant forgiveness by God? Do we deserve His unwavering love after all we've ignored him,... hurt him, etc.?
Be real, man, and you know the answer is the same for us as it is for your neighbors.
Yet He does. And we are to strive to be like Him. Not like them. Not like, well, ourselves. But more like Him, day by day.
Jesus asked the Father to FORGIVE the men who had just hammered nails into him. They'd (already) whipped him unrecognizable, and were at that moment mocking him and spitting on him -- and he prayed for them.
We are to be like Him, D, not them. Hard? Yeah -- duh. If it was easy, everyone would be doin' it, y'know? :)
***
Me: Some specific helps that the bible shows we can pray for, as the Apostles did:
Ask for strengthening of your faith, for His peace to be in you, for His wisdom - to overpower our damnable 'streetsmarts' and worldly influences, and for His love, Dude. Pray for His love and His grace to overflow from you, every day.
These are just some helpful things we can pray to God for, to help us through each day.
***
Me: Here's 1 last thing that might offer some wisdom. I posted a quote earlier today. It's relevant to this point you bring up:
"If you want the rainbow, you've got to put up with the rain."
-- Steven Wright
Cliches become cliches because they're said so often. They're said so often because they're (usually) true.
A couple of relevant cliches here would be: You've got to take the good with the bad, and, Nothing good comes easy. :)
***
DC: "I know it man, but sometimes it is very hard for me to love someone who is a porcupine and doesn't deserve my love but I give them my love whether or not they deserve it. Because god gives his love to us everyday yet we do not deserve it."
***
Me: That's it, man, that's it. It's the better way, truly. It's a choice, a direction to take. Like on a map. It shows many times throughout the New Testament that before it was referred to as, 'Christianity,' it was called, "The Way." :)
***
Me: Also, lastly, was reading through 1 John chapter 4 this morning. Something else led me there. A verse stuck out that I wanted to share on this point. It's just a reminder of the truth. Since God gave it to me, I give it to you:
1 John 4:12 says:
"...if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."
A quote from the old Humphrey Bogart movie, The African Queen, often helps me remember this point, about loving people who seem hard to love. Katherine Hepburn says to the drunken riverboat captain (Bogart), "Nature, (Mr. So-and-So), is what we are put in this world to rise above."
I take that to mean we are to rise above our natural urges, our 'natural' emotional response - and choose the better way, the loving way (or, "The Way").
***
Me: Hey D, the problem you brought up, it's a universal problem. It's THE problem, you could say. How to be more like God, like Christ, when we are naturally more like the neighbors we at times despise.
It's not just you, no way no how. It's (all of) us, in our natural state. But keep in mind Katherine Hepburn's comment, above.
Maybe because it's so important and yet so common a problem, I can't seem to get it out of my head for now.
So here's a prayer I just read that can help - straight outta scripture:
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