Love, this is the most important commandment in the Bible.
Matthew 22:37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Marcus 12:30-31 “Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
Firstly, love for God, then love for your neighbour. Who is your neighbour?
Is it the person living next to you in a house, apartment, flat or even a room?
Let’s look at the definition of the word neighbour:
A person who lives near or next to another, a person or thing near or next to another, someone who lives very near you, especially in the next house, a fellow human being, a person who shows kindliness or helpfulness toward others.
Neighbour means everyone that you come into contact with everyday while working, driving, going to the shops etc.
So – this means that we should love everyone.
Easier said than done, because as people we tend not to get along with everyone, or like everyone.
Someone who drives in front of you at the stop – what do we do? We get angry. Or someone takes too long at the shop irritates us because we are in a hurry.
Well, at least this is what happens to me and I am guilty of judging someone, even people I don’t know every day for not even doing anything wrong, instead of loving them.
What a difference even a smile would make?
As believers we are supposed to understand love and love everyone unconditionally, show them grace, because you know what? We aren’t perfect either!
The people who have made me the angriest in my life, who have made me feel inadequate about myself were believers.
How sad, and we are supposed to know better, because He loves us with all our flaws and sins.
But it’s as if believers, myself included, feel we have the right to judge others because we know what is right and wrong.
Do you think that judging others is less of a sin than killing someone? Another word that can be used to compare the judging of someone is bullying. Believers can be the biggest bullies.
“Oh he/she sits in the front of the church every Sunday, but did you know I saw them do this and that…who do they think they are? They should not even show their faces in public, let alone in a church”
Is church only for people with no sins?
Luke 5:31-32 “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Some days I just want to delete my account from Facebook.
People on Facebook are horrible. They don’t just judge and bully others with words from behind the facelessness and safety of keyboards, they believe they have a right to do so because we have freedom of speech.
Just because you can say it, doesn’t mean you have to – think about that.
There was an anonymous post from a mother on one of the groups who wanted to know how you identify people who belong to the Free Masons, because they don’t want their children to be associated with them.
I was quite shocked at some of the answers.
Firstly, we are not only judging people but encouraging others to judge them as well and now they are having a whole discussion about it.
Secondly, kids are being taught how to judge someone based on a belief, and that just encourage hate against other people.
If a person who is a non-believer, or part of any other religion comes into contact with a believer and they are treated like some kind of outcast and judged, how do you think they would react?
They would not want to know or have anything to do with God or Jesus? We are His ambassadors on earth.
But, if you treat them with love and show then God’s love, without trying to convince them to convert from one religion to the next or show them that they are wrong, don’t you think that would have a bigger impact?
Matthew 7:1-5 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, you will be measured too. 3 Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4
How can you say to your brother, Let me take the speck out of your eye, when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
We are not meant to judge others, but love others. Believers should know better than that, because we do not deserve His grace and Love. Even when we know better, we still sin, and He still loves us unconditionally.
Think about that next time someone irritates you, or cuts in front of you in the traffic.
Instead of flipping them off, getting angry and in the end spoiling your own day, smile at them and wave and say – It’s okay.
Because in the end it has always been about love. His love for us, our love for Him and showing His love to others, because He loved us first!
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16.