Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself预览

Helpful perspectives when loving your neighbor is hard, #4

The last perspective that might encourage you when ‘loving your neighbor’ is hard, is that God will reward you. People might not even notice what you are doing, or they might respond negatively. But God does see what you do, even ‘in secret’. And He doesn’t forget about it.

Just as God will bring every evil deed into judgment, as we read yesterday, so He will reward our good deeds. Not as a way to earn salvation — that’s only possible through faith in Jesus Christ, not by our own works. But being saved by grace alone should make us all the more motivated to honor God with our lives; and thus, to love our neighbor as well.

Paul compares the life of a Christian to a building that is founded on the solid foundation of Jesus Christ. We can ‘build’ upon that foundation with gold, silver and precious stones, or with wood, hay and straw. When God’s ultimate judgment day will come, “the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:13-15).

Let this be one more motivation to love your neighbor as yourself!