That 'Love Thy Neighbor' Thing... (Part 4)

Ok, so I'm about ready to round this thing out. But first I want to dig the knife in just a little bit deeper on this subject of love. To love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself - those are pretty simple, right? J.O.Y. Jesus First. Others Second. Yourself Last. Mmm Hmm. Yep, it's that simple!

Until...

A "certain man" (often identified as "the rich young ruler") comes up to Jesus (beginning in Luke 18:18), asking Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"

Jesus answered the man, "You know the commandments..." And He specifically mentioned five of the Ten Commandments. The man said he'd kept all those from his youth.

Pretty impressive!

However, we then see Jesus' reply to the man, and the man's ultimate response. I really believe says it all when it comes to showing all of us how far we've fallen short of loving the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

"You still lack one thing," Jesus said. "Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me."

The man became very sorrowful.

I really don't think this all sinks in. In our lives today we see this as a simple "call" to give. Simply give some of your money away and you'll have treasure in heaven. We think that if we give a certain portion of our income to "the church" or charities, and if we volunteer our time in ministry or in helping at the soup kitchen, and if we do all kinds of things to "help others," then we've fulfilled the commandment to love our neighbors. Not that any of that stuff is "bad!" But the commandment doesn't say, "Do a lot of good things to show love to your neighbors." It says, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Agape your neighbor as you agape yourself. What does that look like? First, what does it look like if you love yourself? You do all kinds of things for yourself. You work and accumulate money so you can pay your bills and buy things for yourself. I won't get too deep into this, although it really might help to make the point - but ultimately, for yourself, you live. You do the things you do to make sure that you keep yourself alive and happy. Sure, you help others too. Maybe you've even helped others since your youth. Maybe you've done a lot to help others! But have you loved others as you've loved yourself? To fulfill this commandment, not just in part, but in full, I believe would involve selling all you have (because you've accumulated all that you have for yourself) and distributing it all to the poor (those who don't have the means to provide for themselves), and to give up your life and follow Jesus. This would be what it means to not just "do your best" at loving your neighbor, but rather to love your neighbor as yourself. Giving it all away. Forget a measly 10%!

I'd seriously like to hear from someone who has truly followed these commandments!

I'm almost to the pinnacle of the point I'm trying to make with these posts, but I hope that right now the point has been made that because of the sinful nature of those who are still in Adam, and who haven't been made into new creations by coming to faith in Jesus, and because of the flesh that leads even new creations away from the ways of the Life of the indwelling Christ, these two commandments are impossible for us to try to live by. That's right... God commanded what is impossible for us to do!

And that's the whole point of the LAW! These two commandments are part of the law. I'll get a little more into that in the next post. We've certainly "Christianized" these laws through our very weak applications of "Put God First and Others Second." But again, think about what it really means to love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, with ALL your soul and with ALL your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

Previous to His encounter with the rich young ruler, Jesus had come across another man, a lawyer, who had asked Him the same question, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" (Luke 10:25). There was an exchange of law talk, very similar to the conversation with the man in Luke 18. In this case, the lawyer quoted the "Big Two" laws to Jesus. Jesus told the man, "Do this and you will live," which is exactly what the Law itself said all along.

But it gets interesting. The man, "wanting to justify himself," said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

Yeah, really, who is your neighbor? Is it just those you like and those you socialize with? Is it your coworkers? Is it those you get along with on your street? Those in church? Christians?

What about those who don't like you? What about those who don't treat you well? What about your "enemies?"

Jesus' answer to the lawyer probably shocked a lot of people. We all know the story. Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. Speaking this parable to a crowd of Jews, who most certainly understood the characters in the story, He tells them that the two people who passed by the man who had been robbed and left for dead were a priest and a Levite. But it was the sworn enemy of the Jews in that day - a Samaritan - who took care of him and provided for his well-being.

In short, I think the only definition of who your neighbor is, is "anyone and everyone."

So, as to the commandments, with further clarification from Jesus as to the depths of what they really mean, how ya doing? :)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5