Love Thy Neighbor

You may ask why I am bringing up about loving my neighbor. I believe for anyone to embrace the life of purpose and destiny it has to begin with love. Without love what truly is our purpose.

If you are a Christian Jesus Christ commanded that you love your neighbor as you love yourself. In fact he went a step forward saying to love your enemies. Both are difficult to do especially the enemy part. This is especially true for what happened in Orlando, Florida on Sunday. I am not here to throw a political or religious spin on this however what is the alternative to love; like I say not an easy thing to do for sure.

I could say that I like people and not love them. This is true and I am sure most of us live in this area more than love. What I can say is that love is the next step up from like. A very high step for sure. Also I have to say that I am still working on love though it is a commandment. Jesus did not say it would be easy either just do it.

The hardest part is feeling the love from fellow Christians. Often I do not feel the love even though love is really not a feeling but a choice. Love is something you have decided to do. So I could say I am not sure some fellow Christian have made the choice to love me. Of course it is not easy to love someone you don’t know at all. Again this is where choice comes in.

Another angle is that we are to love but does not mean that we always like what other people do, stand for or live. For instance I am not a big fan of the major candidates for the presidential election. I can go so far to say that I won’t be voting for either one for what they stand for; however it does not change that I am still to love them. I have heard sermons on love and what always comes up is that we do not have to like what they do sometimes just like we don’t like what our children do always. We love our children or other members of our family even when we do not agree with what they are doing.

What happened in Orlando shows not liking what people do and turning the dislike into hate. This is why so important to separate love from like or dislike. If you dwell so much on what a segment of society that you do not agree with than you can go mad like this shooter. Our nation needs to recognize those who are going too far and become radical in the poor sense of the word. I am saying that because radical is not all bad or good. I am radical in my beliefs but doesn’t mean that I am being bad. Other words our country needs to recognize those who maybe looking toward being terrorists or going mad. Not everyone who kills 50 people and injured even more are terrorists that may have gone mad. In this case the shooter was probably both.

Without trying to go really extreme on love thy neighbor we will meet our purpose and destiny if we choose to do so head on. I hope this helps us all and let us love someone new today. Remember the families of those who were killed in Orlando and the whole city.