Romans 13:8-10
St. Paul writes that all of God’s law can be summed up in one sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” While the sentence seems simple, it makes sense for us to examine each piece of it. We want to ensure that we understand what God says so we can do it.
Love
What is love? Is love the butterflies you feel when you look at your spouse? Is it the warm feeling you get when your kids fall asleep on you or when they look especially cute? Is it the feeling you have after having a great dinner with friends?
No. We think about love as an emotion, a feeling that’s separate from our actions. The Bible, however, views love as an action separate from our feelings.
When the Bible tells us that God loved the world, it doesn’t say that he had a warm feeling. It says that God sent his only son. That’s an action.
What if Jesus had only loved us in his heart and not with his actions? He ever would have gone to the cross to die for us. His love wouldn’t have mattered to us at all. We’d still be in our sins.
Love is what we do, often despite our feelings. Love is when we treat others with love even if we are angry or insulted or persecuted.
Your Neighbor
Who is our neighbor? That’s a famous question that led to Jesus telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. When we ask, “who is our neighbor?” sometimes we’re really asking, “Who do I have to love and who can I not?” Jesus’ response leads us to show love to everyone. We act as a neighbor when we do loving things for the people around us.
There’s another error, though. We can love humanity to the detriment of humans. In Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, Mrs. Jellyby spends her days on a charity in far off Africa while her kids are hungry and dirty. Sometimes it’s easier to love people who are far away than to care for our neighbor right here.
As Yourself
To love your neighbor as yourself, you must put other people’s needs before your own. That’s the opposite of what the world tells us to do, but it’s what Jesus did for us.
He did not grasp for divine glory and power while he was here. He humbled himself. He didn’t fight to protect his life. He offered it as a sacrifice for us. He didn’t call down curses on his persecutors. He forgave them from the cross. His sacrifice on the cross put our salvation before his comfort. He willingly suffered unimaginable pain so we could have life.
Jesus calls us to that kind of love.