Who have you loved today?
Luke 10: 27-28
Who have you loved today? Even as great believers, we can fall into the habit of climbing the ladder in life - gaining the positions that we feel are improvements and that we think hold more esteem. People have the ideas of going somewhere big in life and they try to equate it with big names or trying to achieve something we see as “big”. None of us actually graduate through hierarchical structures that we try to attach ourselves to. God actually promotes us based on our hearts and how we treat others - based on who we have loved today.
In this scripture, Jesus answers a Pharisee (in response to the question “How do I get to Heaven?) and says “Love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and live.” Notice that he says all four times. Even when we aren’t feeling like reaching out to or loving others, he says pull on your strength. Make the decision in your mind that you are going to love that person. Love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and you will live.
Jesus is telling us to love people and our neighbors. He doesn’t separate loving God and others into two commandments. He makes them one and the same. If you love God, you will love others. We can separate our love for God from our love for God. We cannot separate our servant-hood for God from how we serve other people. Jesus says that they are one.
What is ‘our neighbor’? After this passage, Jesus tells the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Jesus’ times, Samaritans were looked down upon because they worshiped another God and had odd customs. They were the enemy of the Jews - they were the lowest of the low. Jesus replies that a neighbor is a total stranger - someone we may have nothing in common with! Jesus sees neighbors in a different way than we do. It goes against what our mind is trained to think about people. It doesn’t matter what the person may look like to us.
The Samaritan took twelve acts of mercy and deposited them on the Jewish man’s life to get him back to help. The heart of love does specific things - specific acts of love. The heart of love doesn’t wait to help, but jumps in when they see a need. The heart of love sees the deed through until completion, and loves with the best they have, not with leftovers. Our neighbor is anyone that we come in contact with everyday - those that actually cause us to step out of our comfort zone. We want to love our friends and family, but that doesn’t really challenge those. Reach out beyond our comfort zone is actually what allows the love of God to spread.
Two men walked by the victim and left him before the Samaritan came along - a priest and a temple assistant. But Jesus doesn’t talk about those first two men in judgment. We often tend to look at things with a heart of judgment instead of grace. We justify not helping people by focusing on what we think is wrong - “They did it to themselves.” But God didn’t call us to judge. Rather he called us to walk in grace. All Jesus says is who they were and that they “walked on”. But they thought they were doing the right thing. God sees their heart. We can’t possibly see people’s hearts or motivation. That is why we as believers are only called to love and have grace. Not to judge.
Love releases - not controls. Our hearts are to release people into the love of God. We are only called to trust and have faith in God - letting God take others on the journey and to their destiny in His time, not our time. God often goes against our common sense and how we think. That is why we can only love and sow into others - not judge. It’s not about what others do wrong - to God, it’s about what I do right. What you do may seem small or nonsensical to you - but God looks at your heart. He uses things and deeds and ways we can’t understand.
Our increase in God comes as we love God with all of our hearts and love the people with whom we come in contact. It has nothing to do with what we gain in the natural - nothing to do with the hierarchies we try to move up, nothing to do with our house or car, nothing to do with how much money we make or what kind of clothes we have. Where we go in life has nothing to do with the way the human mind works. What matters to God is who have you loved today? Who have you reached out to? How have you treated others? How have you tried to show the love of God to others?
