It’s one thing to talk about loving thy neighbor as a
concept but it is another thing altogether when faced with the reality of a
‘neighbor’ whom you don’t like or even despise. How do I love someone when
everything he does is in stark contrast with the principles I believe in? How
do I love my neighbor who is a drunkard and abuses his family? Even more
problematic, how do I love someone who has harmed me or my loved ones? Is it
really possible to do?
Well, the answer is yes and no. No it is not possible in the
flesh. Our flesh lives by an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It seeks
vengeance and claims self-righteousness. Its fruit of hatred, discord,
jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions and envy makes it
difficult to love even a loveable neighbor let alone one we can’t stand at all.
Yet in Christ, the answer is yes. When I belong to Christ
and receive newness of life from Him, loving thy neighbor is no longer about
who the other person is but about who I am in Christ. In Christ I am no longer
led by my flesh and its desires, but by the Holy Spirit. The love I am now
able to show my neighbor is not the fruit of the flesh but the fruit of the
Spirit.
Jesus said that we should love one another, love our
neighbor and even more…love our enemies. You might say ‘love’ is a strong
word…perhaps too strong. I cannot possibly love someone who has harmed me or my
loved ones in the same way I love my child or my spouse or my friends. Surely I
can’t be best friends with such an offender!
Indeed no! But we can show the love set out in 1 Corinthians
13. It is not a love that asks of us to like anybody or to be best friends with
anybody but it is a love that asks of us to crucify the self and allow Christ
to shine through us. So let us go to 1 Corinthians 13 to see what this love is
that we should and can show all our fellow men irrespective of how we feel
about them:
Firstly,
love is patient and love is kind. To be patient is to be longsuffering, to be patient
in bearing the offenses and injuries of others, to be mild and slow in avenging,
slow to anger and slow to punish. Kindness is an attitude shown in our actions
and our words. Furthermore, love does not envy, does not boast and is not
proud. Indeed we cannot look down on any other person because our righteousness
is not ours but that of Christ. Love is also not rude or self-seeking. It is
not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs and does not delight in evil.
All
of these are things we can show towards any other person irrespective of
whether we like them or not, whether we approve of their lifestyle or not. Our
actions are not determined by them or by our flesh but by the Spirit of Christ.
No
matter how we feel about our fellow man, we must be of the same mind of Christ
whose first coming was not to harm or judge but to teach and to save. When a
Samaritan village would not welcome Jesus, his disciples asked Him if they
could call for fire from heaven to destroy them but Jesus rebuked them saying:
“For the Son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them.” (Luke 9:56) This should be our attitude
as well. Not to destroy people, but to save people. We still live in the year
of the Lord’s favor.
There is a time for everything and when Jesus
returns, He will do so as the Judge and there will be a day of vengeance. But
now it is our time to love our neighbor with the love shown to us by Christ.
Not a love that ignores wrong, not a love that prevents justice but a love that
is longsuffering and kind and that rejoices in truth rather than evil.
God bless,
Lize
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