“Love” Thy Neighbor

     Love is very popular. This has always been the case and I suspect it always will be. I think it's safe to say that most people think that if something has love in it, it can't be wrong. Love is a powerful and important force, something that can motivate and destroy us depending on the circumstance. As a Christian we get asked all the time: Why can't you just love everyone? Why do we have to judge others and make sinners out of everyone?

“And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.”

(1 John 4:16)

     The world seems to see the Christian's need to point out sin as being very unloving. We get called intolerant and hateful, bigoted and closed-minded, out of touch and stubborn. They ask us how can the love between two people be bad and why can't we just let them be happy? This world has a love affair with love but sadly, like a teenage girls affection for a celebrity, it's based more on what they think they know then the truth. To love as the world prescribes is to allow everyone their choice and to make no judgments and no comparisons, let us each find joy in whomever's arms we choose. The question is, is this acceptance really love?

“But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him.”

(1 John 2:5)

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.”

(1 John 4:17)

     Imagine that you're best friend is terribly ill, terminal. He will die eventually, it's only a matter of time. Now further imagine that you hold in your hand the cure for his ailment. Now what would be said of you if you -knowing you had the cure- said nothing of it to your friend? This world asks for us to on one hand believe that all men are dead apart from God, and on the other hand to tell no one of their need for Him. They expect us to carry the cure for the only true disease that is killing billions and yet tell no one! Constantly we are told that we can believe what we want, just don't push it on others. They do not understand that to hold our faith properly, we must tell those around us! It is not hatred that compels us to bring light to the shadows where sin is hiding, it's love; or at least it should be.

     It's not love when you allow others to wallow in sin. Would you be considered loving if you let your brother or sister pursue an addiction to some life destroying drug? Would you be hailed for your great acceptance if you allowed a friend to continually rape and murder others because that's where he finds joy? In reality, society is more than happy to accept any sin that a man can do without hurting someone else; “as long as it doesn't effect me,” right? Real love will not stand by and let someone be slowly strangled by sin just because they wish for them to be happy! I love my family and my friends, but I would have every hardship and suffering fall upon them if that is what is necessary to lead them to God! I do not much care for someone's earthly happiness, not for it's own merit at least. Happiness will come when we are right with God. Anything else is a sugar coat on refuse, a nice new paint job on a derelict building.

     Christians should be paragons of love. But that love cannot be shown by sacrificing the soul of the recipient. Love is not a goal. Love is a choice, a means, an action; love is a verb. I don't care if your choice makes you happy if it also makes you sick. God is love. He exampled it and shared it with us as a gift and blessing. God also framed the right and the wrong. This great God of love is the King of creation as well, and we cannot promote peace by lawlessness. So no, I cannot just love my neighbor as you say. I must love them as God has said, by showing them the truth; by showing them God.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. "For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. "But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."

(John 3:16-21)