The second of the greatest commandments was to love our
neighbors as ourselves. We were to look at other people the way we looked at
ourselves. We were to consider the way we related to our neighbors, people in
need, people all around us, as if we were doing things for ourselves, taking
care of ourselves, doing for them what we felt was best for us. And, guess
what. It was impossible for us to keep that command as well. By the time we
heard about such a thing, we had already loved ourselves far more than we loved
anyone else, and no amount of trying to obey a law would make us the least bit
loving towards anyone at all.
When Jesus came, he said to his friends, “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”
(John 13:34). Instead of laws of love we had to obey in order to earn right
standing with God and man, there was a love from God, a love that was ours
through Jesus Christ, which would enable us to love others in the very same way
we had experienced the love of God.
In a sense, Jesus was saying, “I have loved you, now go and
do likewise.” Jesus was the vine pouring his love into the branches and
directing the branches to pass on what they had received. Jesus was the spring
of living water, causing us who received him to be so filled with that living
water of love that we would pour out the overflow of that love to anyone who
comes close enough for us to touch their lives with ours.
There is a big difference between unloved and unloving
people living under the burden to find a way to love God with all our being, and
beloved children of God passing on the love that has been poured into their
hearts by God’s Holy Spirit. There is a huge difference between unloved and
unloving people trying to find some way to love our neighbors as if they were
us, and beloved children of God simply imitating the love they have received
from their Father.
The bottom line is that, instead of a law that tells us to
do something so that God will do likewise to us, God shows us the love he has
poured out for us, so that we can experience that love, and then go and do
likewise. The law that demands unloved people to love has long proven itself to
be hopeless. The love that will pour into people’s hearts the eternal and everlasting
love of the God who created us, that love will flow through our hearts so that
both our Father in heaven, and our neighbors on earth, will know we love them.
From my heart,
Monte
© 2013 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
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