Love Your Neighbor

Love Your Neighbor

We all know that Jesus made it clear.  Next to loving God with all our heart, mind, strength, and soul, there is no greater command of God than to love our neighbor as ourselves.  Now, many things come to mind when we think of that.  Treat them respectfully, help them when they need help, don’t talk about them behind their backs, be kind to them . . . But, here is the question that must be answered: What is the ultimate show of love for our neighbor?

If we gave our neighbor everything we had to help him have the best life here on earth and if we treated him so well that he thought we were the best possible person on earth, and yet we did not give him what he needed for his eternal well-being, would that really be love?  I don’t think so.  Please read carefully these words by Packer (I have highlighted key words that grip my heart every time I read these words).   I will keep them short and then continue them in the next blog.

“Christ’s command [Love your neighbor as yourself] means that we all should be devoting all our resources of ingenuity and enterprise to the task of making the gospel known in every possible way to every possible person.  Unconcern and inaction with regard to evangelism are always, therefore, inexcusable.”  He then makes it clear that nothing, including the glorious doctrine of the sovereignty of God should ever, in our minds, “lessen the urgency and immediacy and priority and binding constraint of the evangelistic imperative.”

Do you hear the call of God in this, dear child of God?  It is urgent!  It is of top priority!  It is not a suggestion but a clear command of the Lord of our lives…Love your neighbor by caring for his eternal well being!  Bust through the excuses and the fears—declare the gospel to him.  This is love, indeed!