Appendix 5. Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. How can we love our neighbor as we love ourselves? To do that, we must cast off the greed and cravings within us, because those who look only at themselves can never obey God’s word. Some make excuses: they have no money right now, they are ill, they are too poor. Others say that because they are better educated than the next person and hold high positions the world respects, they ought to be treated with honor at church too, and that they are far too busy to have time to look into a neighbor’s pain. Of course, life in this world can be so wearing that we fail to care for neighbors who are struggling more than we are. Even those in the burning fire of hell are in such torment themselves that they cannot pay attention to the people beside them, afflicted by Satan and crying out in the flames. Then how are we, who care nothing for our neighbors now, any different from the people in hellfire? To look only at my own hurt and my own wants and say I have no time to love my neighbor—how is that different from staring at nothing but your own agony in the fires of hell? To care for our neighbors with the love of Jesus, we must die on the cross. Only then will the dead body stop craving, and only then will the reborn soul have room to look into a neighbor’s suffering.

Jesus said that this self-giving love for a neighbor is itself the sign that you have not fallen into hell. That is why he told us not to stare at our own pain like those in hell, but to love our neighbor as ourselves, like people who are alive and have life in them. Every human being is inclined to love only themselves. To overcome that evil human nature, we must learn suffering, sacrifice, service, and love through Jesus Christ, and more than that, we must be born again through Christ. It is because we still live looking no different from those in hell that our own pain feels so much greater and sharper. Jesus gladly gave his own life for sinners, yet we cannot even share the bread the Lord has placed in our hands.

Everyone wants to live a rich life in this world. Yet because we know the Lord’s sacrifice, we overcome our sinful nature and put the word into practice. Only by letting go of what is mine can I love someone else. Those who clutch what is theirs have no hands free to embrace another, and so they cannot show consideration or hold anyone close. God’s work is not done by special people. Praying for the powerless and sharing what we have with a neighbor are not reserved for special people either. Whoever cannot love God can never love a neighbor in the Lord. For in God’s sight, everything that happens under the sun, good or evil, takes place in darkness. Unless we take up the light that overcomes the darkness, we may cry as loudly as we like that we are good, there in the filthy, ugly dark, and we will still be in darkness. Coming out of that darkness into the light is being born again, and taking our neighbor by the hand and coming out of the darkness together is loving our neighbor.

The church is the members of Jesus’ body, and that means the church is me myself. When I do not move for the church that is myself, that church dies. This is why we are told to work together for good. To think that someone else will do God’s work even if I do not, and that the church will grow anyway, is to give up being a member of God’s body. God’s Kingdom will grow only when each one of you moves. As the members move, the body of Jesus will grow healthy, and the souls who are saved will be offered to God as the fruit of your reward. Where do you stand now as you look to the Lord? And how are you serving God now? May you grow strong in the word and show your faith by what you do.