Morning By Morning #72

Love your neighbor.

Matthew 5:43

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

“Love your neighbor.” Perhaps he is rolling in money and you are poor, and you see yourself sleeping on your little cot right next to his elegant mansion where he holds the most elegant banquets using the finest linens. Do not forget, however, that God has given him these things. So do not covet his wealth or wish him ill will but be content with where God has placed you. And if you cannot better your position, do not look at your neighbor, wishing he would become like you. Instead, love him, for then you will not envy him.

On the other hand, perhaps you are rich and live next to the poor. Do not despise having to call them your neighbors but come to terms with the fact you are commanded to love them. The world thinks of them as their inferiors, but what makes them inferior? They are much more your equals than your inferiors, for “from one man [God] made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth” (Acts 17:26). Only your coat is better than theirs, but you are by no means better than they are. They are people—are you more than that? So be careful to “love your neighbor” even if he is dressed in rags and has fallen into the depths of poverty.

Yet perhaps you say, “I can’t love my neighbors because even with all I do for them I only get ingratitude and contempt in return.” That’s all the more reason to exhibit the heroism of love! Do you want to be a “feather-bed-of-ease” warrior instead of warring the rough fight of love? He who risks the most will win the most, and if the path of love is rough, boldly march across it, still loving your neighbors through thick and thin.

“Heap burning coals on his head” (Prov.25:22), and if your neighbor is hard to please, don’t seek to please him—seek to please your Master. And remember—if your neighbors spurn your love, your Master has not, for your kind deed is as acceptable to Him as though it had been acceptable to them.

“Love your neighbor,” for in doing so you are following in the footsteps of Christ.

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

When Jesus was asked by “one of the teachers of the law”: “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” He replied, “The most important one is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:28 – 30). This, of course, is a quote of Deuteronomy 6:4-5. Jesus then continued by quoting Leviticus 19:18, saying, “The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:31).

What a beautiful teaching, for if we truly love the Lord we will not want to grieve Him by sinning. And if we love others, we will not desire to sin against them either. This is why Paul said,

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Romans 13:8-9