It can be hard
to show love to one another. When Jesus says, love your neighbor as yourself,
it sounds simple. Yet we like to throw our minds in the mix and that makes hate
more prevalent sometimes. I have been blessed to have some amazing neighbors
and try to take care of them as they also take care of me. Not all my neighbors
make loving an easy feat.
It’s easy to
love neighbors when they say and do the right things, but what about when they
don’t? A little while ago we had cable issues, our wifi kept disconnecting and
soon we knew two hours of our life would be calling customer service. After
four hours and three calls a technician came to our house. He checked inside our
home system and then when outside to our box. He came back and said that our
neighbor opened up the box and split our cable wire. Our neighbor was stealing
cable from us for a couple of months. It’s easy to love neighbors that do what
we think neighbors should do, it’s hard to love when they do the opposite.
Ephesians
4:31-5:2
“Get rid of all
bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of
malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as
in Christ God forgave you. Follow God’s example, therefore as dearly loved
children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself
up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”
I will admit, I
didn’t think highly of my neighbor after this happened. Yet this isn’t the love
God was talking about. It’s easy to love the people we love, it’s hard to love
everyone because we hold bitterness, rage and anger in us. Outburst of anger
and settled feeling of anger have crept in my heart at times. If there were a
couple of people I ran into in my daily life, love is not what I would want to
say to them. I would want to say a couple other choice words. Yet, Jesus
teaches us not to do this, why?
Jesus died for
us. With how imperfect I am, Jesus still thought I was worth dying for. All the
good and all the bad I have ever done in my life, Jesus still thought I was
worth dying for. This is why we are called to let go of the hate because even
while we were and still are sinners, Jesus didn’t give up on us and laid his
life down for us.
Jesus loves us.
This is why I need to still show love to my neighbor and those who I feel have
wronged me because of the love of Jesus. Love is not easy, sometimes it can be
a hard challenge when we let it. It’s time to let go of some hate and do a
better job of showing genuine love to one another.
Have a great
day.
