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TRUE LOVE

"You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD" (Lev. 19:18).

Leviticus is a somewhat boring book for many people, but few have stopped to see the quality of its content.

This book specifies the laws that God gave to His people for their spiritual, ethical, and social benefit. That is the reason why people don't read it. Commandments and laws are boring topics for many, but there is a synthesis that catches a lot of attention if we take the time to find it: "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD" (Lev. 19:18).

"And does love have anything to do with laws?" is a question you might be asking yourself right now. The word law comes from the noun Torah, which means teaching. In other words, in this verse from Leviticus (to be more specific), God wants to teach us how to live in His presence; in this case, by loving our neighbor as ourselves.

What does God mean by loving our neighbor as ourselves? In Hebrew, the word 'âhab means to love. The commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves is simple, but commonly misunderstood. It does not mean that we must love ourselves before we can love someone else; it means that just as we take care of ourselves and look out for our own interests, we should also take care of and look out for the interests of others. It is living selflessly.

Many choose to love like the Pharisees and scribes: they only love those who love them back. But love doesn't originate from that point; it comes from the point that is often said: "do good to others regardless of who they are." It's true, as a human being, one sometimes wonders: why should I love others who don't even care about me? My answer has always been and will always be: look at Christ.Why? His actions spoke louder than his words.

Today, I invite you to post this on your social media: I choose to love my neighbor as myself as Jesus did with his enemies.

- Richard Paredes.