Uncommen: God GoalsSample

Love Thy Neighbor

Matthew 22:39 "And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Our verse shares the second greatest commandment, but here is the first one - And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This one is the great and first commandment.

In a world that seems too connected most days, it's hard to love your neighbor as yourself. Even on a good day that seems challenging as I'm very forgiving of myself, but not others. In my opinion, I can do no wrong!

There was a time when I believed that only the news/media and political parties pitted us against each other. But you don't have to go far to see a video of one person mistreating another person. Whether verbal or emotional, we seem not to like each other, let alone love each other.

But if we took some time to consider what we have in common, that may change.

Eternal commonalities:

• Created by God
• Loved by God
• Bought at a price
• Required to love each other
• Told to forgive each other
• Beautifully and wonderfully made
• Given commandments on how to live life
• We are all sinners
• Equal in God's eyes
• Live forever (heaven or hell)

Earthly commonalities:

• Born into sin
• Are fragile and dependent on others
• Struggle
• Love
• Hurt and Hurt others
• Feel
• Worry
• Need companionship
• Sin
• Die

I'm sure you've heard the statement "we have more in common than we don't." In spite of that, we tend to focus on our differences which makes it hard to love each other.

What if we were to see each other as God sees us? A brother or sister in Christ may struggle with something and need some love. I'm sure you had days that you just needed someone to give you some encouragement. That encouragement may have been just the thing for you to get through that struggle.

We are all parts of the body of Christ, so it should be a lot easier for us to love each other.

Uncommen Questions:

Do you see people as God sees people?

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being you love you others as God loves you), how would you rank yourself?

Uncommen Challenge:

I challenge us all to try to see what we have in common with each other. If we did that, I bet we'd be a lot more forgiving and loving toward each other.