Nougat 17

I know, I know … we’ve been talking about nothing but Love for the last few weeks. And today’s Holy Nougat is also about Love.

“For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”” ‭‭Galatians‬ ‭5:14‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Loving our neighbor is somewhat easy when the neighbors are nice and easy going. But have you ever had that kind of neighbor, the kind that seem to think rudeness was a spiritual gift? Or the gossiping kind? The offensive ones are also a challenge, for somehow they’re not always easy to avoid. Yet we’re called to love them.

Recently, I recall splitting hairs between liking and loving. For sure, a distinction between the two gives me permission to choose my response to them. I valiantly tried to justify my position (and still do), but my accountability partner would have none of it. My AP insists that Loving and Liking are intertwined, so my technicality was thrown out.

No fun.

Even if the character who generated my ‘Love (spiritually) but don’t like (socially) wasn’t literally my next door neighbor! But we have neighbors (persons in close proximity) all around us, and distance is always relative. For, if I were to share an apartment with non-relatives, operatively they are my neighbors. The apartments or homes in the vicinity are also my neighbors. But we can’t exclude the neighbors at work, or even at church, in the streets, towns, or cities nearby. Then we have neighboring countries and regions. And when put in perspective in that way, it really is tempting to split hairs about Love and Like.

Yet, whether it’s those displaced by war, climate change, tragedy, or violence; the busybody across the hall or street; the twerp or pest at school; the annoying one at work or school; the one/s on the corner who everyone avoids; or the very nice one who everyone wants to be around – our call to Love demands that we ‘see’ the person as God does. That’s not always as easy as it sounds.

Perhaps some perspective is necessary for us to track and absorb it all. We note that Jesus included a qualifier there: Love the neighbor as we love ourselves. ie in the same way we that we love us.

… erm

… uh …

‘… like what did you say Jesus?’ ‘First of all, You know self-love is discouraged by us church folks and believers’; and ‘Secondly, on the assumption that I do love myself’ (and some of us don’t), ‘You asking us to love those people?

Do those reactions come near to our heart response to Jesus’ command, even sometimes?

I guess Jesus is taking us back to Genesis 1:26-28; for if we’re made in God’s likeness; then in a sense, God’s love for us is God’s love for God’s own self. And technically, it’s the same for Jesus. Hence, His ability to Love and Forgive Judas. So God’s not asking us to do what God doesn’t do. But, because we carry God’s spiritual DNA, and bear resemblance to God, especially now we are believers, we can accomplish the Love Challenge by inviting God’s Spirit to do the (humanly) impossible with and in us.

Lord Jesus – this one’s Yours; Spirit of the Living God, we need Your grace to Love; enable us to receive the grace to Love our neighbors as we Love ourselves, we pray in Jesus name, amen.

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May all we seek be found in Christ