#love your neighbor as yourself

[thepictorialist]

Beware son. Ignorance and Arrogance are not your friends. They will blind you, rob you of life and love, and leave nothing but a husk of misery, hate and delusion.

[walkswithmyfather]

“We love, because He first loved us.” —1 John 4:19 (NASB)

1 John 4: 7-21 (MSG). “My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.

My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love! This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgement—is one not yet fully formed in love.

We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first. If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.”

“What does 1 John 4:19 mean?” By BibleRef.com:

“Verse Commentary: This short verse offers profound words. People do not wake up one day and decide to love (Romans 3:10). God is love, created love, and loved us first. John's summary of verses 17 and 18 also serves as a reminder. We are not to take credit for the love we have and show to others. God loved us, before we were capable of loving Him, and we can only love others because of what He has done in our lives.

As verses 20 and 21 will add, this love is not merely a mutual affection between us and God. It must also include love for others. Acting out of love is not exclusive to God in this context, but consists of loving both God and other people. This is the Great Commandment which involves loving God fully and loving neighbor as yourself. This teaching is also based upon the ancient Shema, or the Saying, from Deuteronomy 6:4–5: "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might." The same is seen in Leviticus 19:18: "you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord."

Verse Context: First John 4:11–19 is the backbone of John's letter. The primary way Christians are to be recognized is by love. This is not merely what we feel, but what we do for others. True, godly love is the most powerful evidence of being ''born again'' as a child of God. This love comes from God, who loved us before we loved Him. When we live in obedience to God, according to love, we can be confident in our relationship with Him, and have no need to fear His judgement.” Amen! 🙌

[raz-b-rose]

Exactly what I have been reading on the last few days. To forgive and love those who do the worst to us is hard and makes me feel beyond frustrated (God is working on my heart and I'm coming to him daily over this issue) but it's what Jesus did and God expects from us.

Also the lines "God doesn't need us to protect His public image" and "Jesus knows what it feels like to be hurt by religion" is powerfull and true.

[justana0kguy]

2022 OCTOBER 03 Monday

"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."

~ Luke 10:27

[pervysmirks]

Really grateful for this movement - it’s about fuckin’ time!

[strengthrequireskindness]

It’s Jesus Respawn Day and I’m in the mood to cause some problems. Reblog with Christian Things that Christians should really value more (or alternatively, things Jesus + God said NOT TO DO that are being done by Christians).

[s-o-a-p-ing]

MATTHEW S.O.A.P. ~ CHAPTER 22

Friday, 3/15/24

SCRIPTURE:

"All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.” ~ Matthew 22:40

OBSERVATION:

All the Law...

Biblical - the Ten Commandments...

Civil? - Some are based on the Commandments... some, like speed limits, are sort of based on loving - respecting - others...

If something doesn't reflect loving God first and foremost, and others as I love (or should love), myself, then I need to stop and reconsider...

Is it - or should it be - a "law"?

Is it - or should it be - taken as "prophetic"- as having been spoken of on God's behalf?

Seems simple enough...

...but sometimes the really hard part is figuring out how to love others as myself when doing that seems unloving some others...

I guess that's where the first command comes into play - Love God with all my heart, all my mind, and all my soul and then seeking His will - surrendering my will and wants - should make this decision easy... though follow-through...

APPLICATION:

Weigh the words - the "commands" - of others against loving God and others...

Seek the Holy Spirit's help in deciding or understanding... 

Seek His power to follow His will...

PRAYER:

Leading Father God - Forgive my forgetfulness in loving You with all I am, and for not always loving myself enough to love others in the way You would have me love them, for not always surrendering my wants and will for Yours in the way Jesus did... In His Name and for Your honor...

𝖌

<))><

[maaruin]

Some musings I had today because Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day coincide:

I have encountered the suggestion that diet and (bodily) exercise in today's society show some similarities with fasting and penance as a traditionally religious activities. I am wondering if there is perhaps more to it, from a religious perspective, than I had assumed before.

One possible purpose of diet and bodily exercise is to make oneself more attractive to attract a romantic/sexual partner. (That, at least, is generally the reason when I try to do this.) Those who do that are thus denying themselves a good now/go through some amount of difficulty or light suffering now to: a) achieve a greater good for themselves in the future and b) give something good to a (potential) partner by being good looking to them.

The commandment-that-is-equal-to-the-highest-commandment is "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."; this I have often seen interpreted to imply "Love others and love yourself". Becoming more attractive is trying to achieve something good for oneself and for another person, as described above.

Therefore, maybe this modern practice of secular fasting is still somewhat within the spirit of religious fasting as practiced in Christianity.

[firstumcschenectady]

“Love Your Neighbor” based on Deuteronomy 5:11-22 and Romans 13:8-10

This Romans 13 passage is hard for me to preach on because it is so core to how I understand faith that I struggle with adequate distance from it. I spent college with a construction paper sign on my door that said “Love is the Answer” and happily chirped to those who said “what is the question?” “it doesn't matter.”

Jesus wasn't the first one to notice that “love your neighbor” undergirded the other laws. Rabbi Hillel was in leadership from about 30BCE to 10CE – so he was someone a little older than Jesus. A famous story is told of Rabbi Hillel.

A stranger came to Hillel and made the request, "Teach me the Torah as I stand on one foot." So Hillel taught him: "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah, all the rest is commentary. Now, go and learn it."

It is reasonable to think that Hillel was pretty famous, and Jesus agreed with his conclusion.

I would even go another step and say that there are two great commandments: Love your neighbor as yourself and love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Loving God is reflected in the first 3 commandments, loving your neighbor in the final 6, and they're both in the 4th about the Sabbath. Furthermore, I'm going to claim the TWO are even the same commandment in two forms. How do we love God? We love God by loving our neighbors. Why do we love our neighbors? Because we love God who loves them. They're not differentiable.

So, that 4th commandment, the one about Sabbath. Have you ever noticed that it is a whole lot wordier than the others? “You shall not steal” is concise. “Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy, as the HOLY ONE your God commands you” is the opening sentence in the paragraph on Sabbath.

When John Dominic Crossan was here, he proposed that Sabbath is at the core of the theological stream that understands God to be aimed at distributive justice. I should say that differently. “Dom says the Sabbath is the key to faith as he knows it.” Phew, that's better.

The thing that really strikes me about the Sabbath as explained in Deuteronomy is that is IS “distributed” fairly. When I want to encourage people to take Sabbath, and to take seriously their need to rest, to play, to connect with loved ones, and to remember that life is more than work – when I want to do all that I end up worrying that I'm just guilting the already overwhelmed. When people are working multiple jobs to have enough to eat, or working obscene hours to fulfill impossible job requirements – how does it help them for me to encourage them to “take a break?”

This may be why I hear “you shall not do any work – you, or your daughter, or your son, or the migrant in your towns, so that your female slave and your male slave may rest as you do” and I'm blown away by it. Imagine! Imagine if EVERYONE got equal access to FULL rest, EVERY week! Imagine if you didn't have to a certain level of wealthy to afford rest!! Imagine if it weren't a privilege, if it didn't have to be earned, if it couldn't be taken away.

I find this hard to imagine.

“Remember that a slave were you in the land of Egypt, and the FAITHFUL ONE your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the HOLY ONE your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.” That is, because you were once aching and in need of help, give rest and help to those aching today. Don't work, to try to get ahead and therefore demand others work. Rest so others can rest. Work doesn't define life. Don't be like those who oppressed you. Be people of God.

Because the people of God rest.

Because the people of God make space for others to rest.

Because love your neighbor as yourself means let them get a Sabbath rest too, let even those you have power over. It means letting them remember why life is worth living, and why work isn't the centerpiece of life.

You may have heard me speak before about Walter Brueggemann's book “Sabbath as Resistance” because it is a favorite of mine. I'm not going to start quoting it at you because if I start I won't be able to start. But I've been deeply formed by Brueggemann's thinking on Sabbath.

John Dominic Crossan says Sabbath is the starting point for justice, for the ways of God in the world.

Brueggemann says Sabbath is the central commandment, the most important one.

They both think practicing Sabbath is central to loving your neighbor. The connection, I think, is that NOT WORKING is imperative to BEING HUMAN. And we generally aren't any better at letting other people be human than we are at letting ourselves be human. So we need regular time to stop and practice being humans – not people worth what we can do or make – but just beloved people of God SO THAT we can do the same for others.

We have to have regular time to NOT WORK in order to LOVE people, and loving people is loving God, and this turns out to be really important.

Last week I talked about nurturing the space for God to grow seeds of hope in us. This week I'm getting around to suggesting that Sabbath is a well known best practice for that.

Now, Sabbath may not be what you think it is, so let me go deep down into its roots. Sabbath is a time to stop being productive so you can be whole. Sabbath is a weekly day off to focus on the things that matter instead of the things demanded of you. Sabbath is for family, friendship, relationship, time with God, laughter, play, poetry, art, music, song, and naps. Sabbath is the practice of leaving behind Pharoah's demand that the decedents of Abraham make bricks, and relearning the rhythms of grace instead.

Sabbath is trusting in God's abundance, instead of fighting for your part of a scarcity pie.

Sabbath is focused on love, not productivity.

Sabbath isn't generative. It doesn't create value. Instead, Sabbath makes time to savor what is and what is good.

Sabbath is time for loving neighbor, and self, God and earth. Sabbath is TIME set ASIDE from LABOR for LOVE.

Those of us who have practiced yoga are familiar with the practice of shavasana, the intentional rest after movement, to allow the practice to settle in. For many it is a dreary, drowsy, sweet, restful time that is more restorative than sleep. Sabbath is meant to be delicious like that. Sabbath IS delicious like that.

At one low point in my spiritual life, I met with a guide to get things back on track and I found myself repeating “I'm so tired, I'm just so tired.” She recommended sleep. I laughed as I realized my communication failure. “Oh, I get sleep. Physically I'm fine. It is all the other ways I'm tired.” Luckily she understood, and recommended more time alone with God where I don't try to produce anything, but simply savor the love God has for me.

Don't try to produce anything, just savor the love God has for you.

Do you do that? Would you want to try? Could you give it 5 minutes? An hour? A day? A day a week? What would happen if you did? What wonderful things would happen? (Savoring God's love, it turns out, as mentioned previously, often looks a lot like savoring the love of God's other beloveds.)

Will you?

Amen

Rev. Sara E. Baron  First United Methodist Church of Schenectady  603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305  Pronouns: she/her/hers  http://fumcschenectady.org/  https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

April 23, 2023

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

it is. so weird to me that I'm having to say this again after a real-life cartoon supervillian already once ran for president on a platform of hatred & fascism and won, but.

it's November, please fucking vote

[kittycatlukey]

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

Fun fact!! If you're debating between "should I suck it up and endure as an act of Christian humility" versus "should I stand up for myself as an act of justice," a really helpful measuring line is "would my (Christian) friends be upset that I'm enduring this or would they stand up for me if necessary"

[momentsbeforemass]

All one thing

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us the familiar words of the Great Commandment.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

While it reads like two commandments, it really isn’t. It’s all one thing.

As St. Bede says, “neither of these two kinds of love is expressed with full maturity without the other, because God cannot be loved apart from our neighbor, nor our neighbor apart from God.”

Which means that if you’re trashing your neighbor, don’t imagine that things are right between you and God. The two loves are inseparable.

While the two are inseparable, the order is intentional. Because it’s an order of operation.

That is, if you “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” You will “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Why? Because you cannot love God without being loved by God.

And here’s the thing, the more you love God, the more you find yourself alive and overflowing with God’s love.

When you are alive with God’s love, it will spill over into every other part of your life. That’s why you end up loving your neighbor as yourself.

Because you literally cannot contain the love of God.

This is why St. Bede says that “neither of these two kinds of love is expressed with full maturity without the other, because God cannot be loved apart from our neighbor, nor our neighbor apart from God.”

And why St. John warns us that anyone who says “I love God” but hates his neighbor, is a liar.

A little advice from someone who’s stumbled on this one. Before you worry about anyone else living down to St. John’s warning, make sure you look in the mirror first.

Today’s Readings

[wiirocku]

Mark 12:31 (NLT) - The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

[amokslime]

About the whole ADHD "finding a way to motivate yourself without using the stress of impending deadlines" thing:

I hate to say it, but learning to be nicer to myself changed a lot of that for me. I really truly hate to say it. I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but you gotta find a way to be nicer to yourself inside your own head, in whatever way works for you. I know it sucks so bad to hear.

The other thing is, if my brain is really refusing to tackle a task, often times the main thing I'm feeling is confused and understimulated. Which leads to me sitting there with the jeopardy theme song playing in my head, and then I unconsciously gravitate towards something that's more stimulating and therefore easier to wrap my head around. So overstimulating myself in some sensory way helps me be less confused about what I needed to do. Everybody's brain is different, though.

And uhh the other thing that helped is concerta, and listening to my body, and working on not being so ashamed when I failed. Which means you will probably have to fail a little bit unfortunately

[jeanpatrice]

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. Jimmy Hendrix