Godly Love is not Human Love
PRACTICAL, DOABLE WAYS TO LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR
God’s commands are simple, practical, logical and doable. They are so logical that even people who do not believe in God can understand them, appreciate them, and apply them effectively to all their relationships without practicing religion. People who love their neighbor show that they love themselves. People who do not love their neighbor with Godly love show that they do not love themselves because it is impossible to give something that you do not possess.
1 Corinthians 13:3-8 provides a convenient summary of all scriptures about loving your neighbor. The table below also provides practical examples of how to love your neighbor as yourself. It is important to recognize that God has more to say about what love is not and does not do than about what it is and does.
The sayings below are from the bible. Each saying provides detailed instructions to the GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOR in the table above. They are all practical examples of how to love your neighbor that anyone can do. Even people who do not believe in God can appreciate that these attitudes and behaviors like these are necessary to building and maintaining healthy relationships. Readers who are familiar with the bible will notice that Old Testament prophets, Jesus and his apostles exhibited these attitudes and behaviors in their relationships and ministries as they obeyed God’s commands to love their neighbor. These stories symbolically forecast what we might expect when we choose to love our neighbors.
These sayings do not typically appear in the bible with an explanation that it is a commandment or that they are about loving your neighbor. Some sayings are direct quotes and some sayings are paraphrases of complete scriptures. Nonetheless, all sayings should be interpreted as commandments, laws, statutes, ordinances, precepts and judgments spoken by God because everything God says should be interpreted as a commandment, law, statute, ordinance, precept or judgment. Furthermore, since God is love, his words should be considered as expressions of who God is because he reveals himself and his love through his words spoken to the heart. We should also remember that we express our love for God by obeying his words,
It is comforting and exciting to imagine what the world would be like if people would obey God’s words about loving your neighbor — not about religion. Change would not happen immediately, but eventually divisions would cease and all people would live in peace with no disunity. That is exactly what God had in mind when he gave these commands. The choice is ours.
Unfortunately, most people do not obey God’s commands about loving your neighbor. Instead of doing what God says, those who want to make the world better do so through involvement in classic strategies such as the following:
Religion
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- Support missions with money
- Go on short-term mission trips
- Prayer
- Deliver various kinds of human services (e. g. food pantries, homeless shelters etc.)
Individual Efforts
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- Volunteering
- Random acts of kindness to individuals
- Philanthropy
- Work with private social activism organizations to change specific issues
Community and Political Activism
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- Work with private social activism organizations to research causes of issues and promote long-term legislative solutions
- Get elected to government leadership positions
- Work with religious organizations
- Support political parties
- Give money to causes
- Street protests.
- Social media
These are all noble and legitimate pursuits. It is fair to say that the world would be in worse shape than it is if sincere, generous, civic-minded people did not engage in these efforts. The problem is that they are not individually or collectively able to effect meaningful, lasting change because they are man’s ideas — not God’s ideas. Nevertheless, people who want to do something but don’t know what else to do should keep on trying. Who knows, perhaps their efforts will do some good while the world waits to learn how to love your neighbor God’s way.
God’s way to love your neighbor should not be a mystery. The real mystery is why Jews and Christians do not go all in to teach God’s way. Perhaps these well-known religions don’t emphasize God’s way to love your neighbor because there is no way for them to monetize an activity that can be obeyed privately, quietly and independently.by anyone –including people who are not religious. Or, perhaps the reason is that religions always focus on religious activities that require religious leadership and organizations. Or perhaps they overlooked hundreds of commandments scattered randomly throughout the bible while they focused on the Ten Commandments and allegories that were too easily interpreted as commandments to practice religion. Or perhaps it is because their hearts are closed to hearing God’s words. Or, perhaps it is just easier to obey man’s religious laws than it is to obey God’s spiritual laws. Or perhaps Jews and Christians have intentionally decided to disobey the second great commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. We will never know.
What we do know, however, is that the world is a worse place than it would be if religious people sacrificed their religion in favor of loving their neighbors.
Those who are open to learning the basics of how to love your neighbor would do well to read and apply the statements below. Readers who would like to know the scriptural references to these sayings can find most of them (with some searching) in an unordered list in God’s Commands About How to Relate to Him and to One Another.
HOW TO LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR BASICS |
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These are the basic elements of loving your neighbor. See the links below for how to love in different relational contexts: