How can I love my neighbor? Its mentioned in the bible and its a command. But it seems so hard to do.
It is a command in the Bible and not only mentioned ones, but eight times. It must be really important.
It seems so nice to hear but its not easy to do. Its a struggle sometimes, speaking for myself. Because how can you love some people that do bad things to you. People that hurt your feelings and doesn’t agree with your opinions and ideas. Persons who are not sometimes really lovable . I know sometimes even if we don’t really know a person we tend to not like them. How much more than loving them.
HOW CAN I LOVE THOSE PEOPLE?
- Remember that you’ve received love from God. Knowing that God loved you even if you don’t deserve it will help you love your neighbor. You’ve received love so you can give it to others.
- You must love yourself. The Bible said “Love your neighbor as yourself”, the measurement within this command is—as yourself. To love your neighbor as yourself you need to love yourself.
- Show them Grace.Knowing that God is love and full of grace, make us wanna love them even if its hard. Grace will teach us proper love and respect for ourselves towards our neighbor. Freely receiving His grace empowers us to freely give it.
- Act with compassion. We all know the Good Samaritan story, that the one who had compassion is the good neighbor. Being compassionate is not only a feeling in your heart. You just don’t feel it and watch people around you. Loving your neighbor as yourself with compassion is being moved to help to the full extent of your ability.
- Look out for others well being. Pay attention to people around you. Open your eyes and your heart. See and look for the need of others and act on it.
- Serve people around you. You are showing kindness in action when you serve from your heart. Not out of duty, because kindness out of duty is not love. Let other people know that you are there for them. Loving people means you are there to serve them. Find ways that you can serve others.
- Speak kindly. Use your words to build others up. Speak words of encouragement to people. You can always find something good on others if you look closely. Tell someone a word of compliment and appreciation.
- Make allowance for others humanity. Nowadays, people always criticize others. May it be personal or in social media. We always have something to say or comment to others. But we are all human, all work in progress. We all do dumb things at some point in our life. So think of others before criticizing or judging them. Sometimes we don’t know the real or whole story. So be kind to others, keep your feet flat on the ground always. We’re all human and imperfect.
- Celebrate and share life with others. Celebrating with others in spite of our own circumstance is hard sometimes. Moments of joy and sorrow comes in our life and we need others for support. Loving others is showing up and being there and opening your heart to support them.
- Forgive them. Forgiveness is a big deal to God. And our Lord Jesus Christ spoke over forgiveness. It results healing in our bodies inside and out. It was freely given to us even we don’t deserve it. Because of Gods love. We all need forgiveness, and loving your neighbor means forgiving them as we’ve forgiven.
WE CAN LOVE OUR NEIGHBORS BECAUSE WE’VE BEEN LOVE BY GOD. IT IS HARD, BUT WE HAVE TO DO IT ON PURPOSE. WE ALL NEED TO BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT LOVING THEM.
