#7 Loving God = Loving People

Matt 22:36–40 NIV
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Everything in the Christian life hinges on the Greatest Commandment. This is what Jesus requires of us: to love him with everything we are, and to love others. The first and greatest commandment deals with our personal walk with the Lord. Spiritual transformation. The second commandment is our walk with other people. Social transformation. The second commandment also involves our walk with ourselves as we cannot fully love other people in the sacrificial yet healthy way God asks of us, unless we have come to a place of deep peace, contentment and love for who God has made us to be.
What is striking about these great commandments is that God says the second commandment is just like the first. They are so interwined, that they are inseparable. In fact, Galatians 5v14 NIV says, “For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping one command: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” And 1 John 4:20–21 NIV says, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother or sister.”
In Luke 10, a man speaks up for all of us with fallen and depraved hearts. He is an expert in the law, and he correctly answered Jesus’ question about the greatest commandment. Then, v29 happens: But he (this expert in the law) wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” We don’t like to admit it to anyone or even to ourselves, but we all try to hide behind this question. We want to know the love of God, and while, we want to fulfil the second part of the Great Commandment, we don’t want to go too far. We want a nice, clean answer to the question of who is my neighbour. But, Jesus answers with the story of the good Samaritan.
To start off, using a Samaritan as the hero of the story would have been offensive to the law expert. Samaritans were deeply despised by the nation of Israel, so for Jesus to use an example of a Samaritan to teach the Israelites something immediately indicates that this may not be the answer we are hoping for. Quite simply, the story involves a man who was travelling to Jericho when he met some thugs on the road. He was attacked, robbed of all his clothes belongings, and left half dead. Several religious leaders saw the man, looked away and rushed on their way. It seems they had more important things to do and perhaps they did not wanting to deal with the hassle of all the ceremonial cleansing laws that would follow any attempts at helping the man. Whatever the reason, they left the man beaten, naked and half dead. A Samaritan traveller (who also had places to be) saw the man and took pity on him. He cleaned his wounds, bandaged him up, carried him on his donkey and put him up in an inn, which he personally paid for. This Samaritan reveals what it means to love our neighbour.
A stranger in a messy, difficult situation that would require personal sacrifice of time, money and effort with no promise of anything in return. A matter of seeing, having pity and taking extraordinary, generous action. The Samaritan had no idea if the man would ever be able to pay him back. Yet, he acted anyway. And it all started by seeing the man and having pity. The other leaders saw the man and quickly crossed the street to avoid him.
While we can’t help everyone, and it is not necessarily wise to give money to everyone you see on the streets, God does want us to take a good look at our neighbours. To look and to really see. And then to act, and not walk away. God has wisdom and strategic ideas for the best way to get involved, but if each of us stopped, looked and took responsibility for getting involved, how much kindness and healing there would be.
God calls us to love him, and then says we are to love like the Samaritan and get personally involved in the messy business of loving our neighbours.
