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You Should Love Your Neighbour
Leviticus 19 v18 “. .You shall
not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people,
but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord. .”
Mathew 5 v43/4 “. .You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall
love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good
to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute
you. .”
Romans 13 v8/9 “. . Owe no one anything except to love one another,
for he 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
bear false witness,” “You shall not
covet,” and if there is any other
commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. .”
Definitions are important
such as. . .Who is your neighbour?. . . Do you know them?. . . What it is to
love your neighbour?
Why all these questions I’ve
bombarded with from the start? It happened one day whilst Jesus was on His
travels that a man tried to catch Jesus out by asking Him ‘Who is your neighbour?’ We all
should know the answer to this question, if not please look up the parable of
‘The good Samaritan’.
So who is your neighbour? Well,
they are not restricted to those live on either side of us. A good neighbour is
one who by-chance happens to be near to you in need of distress or danger. They
may be the worst people in the world, out lawed/ cast by their sins. But if
they are near to us and are need of help, they are our neighbour, the very same
person the commandment bid us to love.
We would be willing to love
our neighbours more if only we could choose them, but, unfortunately we cannot.
With love and affection we must let God choose the particular neighbour He
wants us to love. So again ‘Who is our neighbour’? No matter what they
have done to you, no matter you anger ~ hatred you may feel, yet loving
will/has to be the hardest feeling we must show them. We could do almost
anything else short of loving unpleasant neighbours.
Here are some verses that
best express those feeling that cores around our bodies. .
“Dear Lord will it not do if we return wrong for wrong?
Neither love nor hate, but love ~ O’Lord our souls
Are far from strong and love is such a tender,
home nursed dove ~ How can we Lord, our enemies
bless and love
Fasting! How one could fast and pray!
One could most pathetically pray. But love our enemies?
Dear Lord is there set unto the easier way.
Some way through Churchly service song or psalm
Ritual grand to reach Heavens calm”.
We need to take note that
’Love’ is the word and no matter your version of the Bible it will never change
that .No matter how disagreeable ~ unlovely ~ unworthy our neighbours for the
time may be still the commandment persistently and relentlessly say to us . . Leviticus
19:34 “.
.Thou shalt love him as yourself. .”
Remember, our neighbours are
about us, all the time, needing our love, will you give unconditionally, the next
time they call for help. May be unknown to us they continually touch our
lives. There for we must guard our every
look/word or act, unless we will badly hurt/offend some sensitive spirit.
Always try and remember
others have feelings to. Sadly knowing this some will continually say words and
do things that will cause pain.
“True love is
thoughtful”
We ought to be mindful and
train our hearts to be the most sense of kindness, that we may never, even in
jest, give pain to another human being. Our neighbours have hearts, and we owe
to every one of the . . .
Ø
(From) the beggar we meet on the street
Ø
The poor wretch we find crawling in the mire of
our bins.
Ø
The enemy who flings insults in our force
Ø
Everyone we owe the love, that is thoughtful,
gentle and gives no hurt.
Charles Kingsley has been attributed in saying the following.. (Which
could have come right out of Proverbs or Psalms?)
Ø
Never seek to hurt anyone’s self-respect
Ø
Never trample on anyone’s soul, (though it may be
lying in the mire any way).
Who knows, for that spark
of self-respect is it’s only hope, it’s only chance, the last seed of better
life, the voice of God which still whispers to it. You are not what you ought
to be. You are still Gods child, still an immortal soul, you may rise and
conquer yet, and be a man yet, after the likeness of God who made, and Christ
who died for you. Oh why crush that voice in my heart. If you do crush their
spirit/soul, the creature is lost, and lies where he or she falls never to rise
again.
We should all, train
ourselves to such regard, to have a reverence for human life, that we should
never hurt the heart of one of God’s creatures, not even by a disdainful look.
A common phrase that gets
banded about is ‘If only I knew’. So
if we did know the story behind someone’s life, the hidden loads they have to
carry day-in & day-out, often even carrying someone else’s as well, whilst
all the time never letting be seen the cracks be seen. Yet also never letting
be seen the unhealed sore in their heart, surly then we would have been more
gentle with them.
Life is hard for most people;
certainly have enough without us adding to its burdens by our censoriousness,
our charity, our jeering and our contempt towards them.
There is a Hymn that goes . . .
Is it worth that we jostle a brother,
Bearing his load on the rough road of life?
Is it worth that we jeer at each other’
In the bleakness of heart that we war to knife?
God pity us all our pitiful strife,
God pity us all we jostle each other.
God pardons us all for the triumphs we feel.
When a fellow goes down ’neath’ his load on the
Heather pierced to the heart. Words are keener than steel
And mightier for woe than for veal.
Were it not well, in this brief journey
On over the isthemus, down into the tide.
We give Him a fish instead of a serpent
Ere folding the hands to be and abide
For ever and aye in dust at his side?
It is a sad state of affairs
but all the more true, in that, many of us neglect and fail in our ‘love
duties’, as much as the hurts we give others. How many would walk in ‘cold’
silence beside those whose hearts are aching or breaking, and not saying the
warm rich words of love we might say and which would give so much comfort?
If only we would open our
eyes we could see those who are hungry, and the master is saying unto us ‘give ye them to eat’. Are we really withholding
from them what we might give, they are starving when they might be filled. The
thing is, I’m sure we don’t mean to be so neglectful towards them. In this
moment many don’t realise how lucky a position they are in. To be such a
blessing to those in need of such kind words of reassurance.
It touches our influence; we must not do that which
will hurt him or cause him to stumble.
To wrap up this ‘Life’s Lesson’, all this
has it’s important bearing on missions. We owe love to the perishing ones far
and near to whom we may carry or send the gospel of salvation.
Our miss conception about who
is our neighbour, does not stop or limit to who live next door. When ’Thy neighbour’ is in fact any man woman or child,
of whatever condition, character, Nation or even religion, whom God place us
near to them in need.
Am I finally getting through
to the most stubborn of you, is that penny actually dropping? All that said,
there is a brotherhood in Christ that is closer still. Christ our Lord has
called us to be nice to ‘all men’, especially to those who are of the household
of faith. I don’t mean just to the one’s own Church.
There was a man who went up in a balloon,
said that as he arose the fences that divided the country into fields &
farms faded out, until he saw only one great, wide beautiful landscape of meadows
and of fields and forests with winding stream and river shining rich in
loveliness beneath the pure skies. So as we sawed nearer to God is love and
faith and Christian experience.
The fences that
divide our great ‘Church’ into ecclesiastical farms and pasture fields grow
smaller and smaller until at last they vanish altogether, and we see only one
wide Holy Church.
The accidents of denominationalism
are but of minor importance is comparism with the love of Christ ~ The Cross ~
The Bible ~ The Sacraments and of cause Heaven, which we have in common. We all should learn to love
one another as Christians. Love will soon break down the hardest of fortifications.
We all need to learn to comfort one another and help each other on the way
home.
Each giving to others need,
Each helping to the others best
& blessing each other as well as the rest.
For together we can be one
