To Love Your Neighbor Is to Seek Him, Too! – The Kingdom Curriculum XVI (1)

To Love Your Neighbor Is to Seek Him, Too!

The second great commandment

“And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:39

“Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among robbers?” He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.” Luke 10:36, 37

Tell Me Again Who My Neighbor Is?

As we saw in our last section, loving God begins in seeking Him. What we love, we seek–to indulge, enjoy, and even to serve. What is true for our relationship with God is equally true–or should be–with our neighbors. But who, we might ask, are our neighbors?

See those people around you all day long? They seem to be OK, don’t they? Busy, generally content, plenty of material things to make them happy, lots to do. To look at them you wouldn’t think they had a care in the world. But they need the touch of God’s grace, a touch that can reach them by your attentive care. No, they don’t wear their needs on their shirt sleeves, but they have plenty of them. They feel lonely, insecure, rejected, and may fear failing in this, that, or some other aspect of their lives. They’re in debt beyond what makes good sense, and that adds undue pressure to their most intimate relationships. They find their jobs not as fulfilling as they would like, and they never quite seem to unwind whenever they get the chance for a little R & R. They are routinely beat up, battered, and left for dead by their circumstances, and almost no one seems to take an interest in them.

The Law of God commands us to care, and guides us in the practical dynamics of showing mercy and grace to people in their times of need. When we honor others, look out for their wellbeing, maintain chaste and holy relationships, respect their personal property and space, always treat them truthfully, and check our covetous propensities toward them, we are showing them precisely the kind of love that obedience to God’s Law can engender within us.

All the Law is summed up in the two great commandments–not just the first one, but this second one as well. If we truly regard and esteem the people around us as Jesus did, and as the apostles instruct, we will seek to know them and begin looking for ways to serve them day by day.

Order your copy of The Law of God and The Ground for Christian Ethics by going to www.MyParuchia.com, point your browser to “Publications,” then click on the drop-down option, “Waxed Tablet Publications.”

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In the Gates is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore.

T.M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.