Love your neighbor as yourself

Galatians 5:14 (NLT)

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

The whole law refers to all of the commandments found in the Old Testament.  How many Old Testament commandments are there?  According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/613_commandments) and other sources, there are 613 commandments.  However, Jesus reduced those 613 commandments to 2 (Matthew 22:36-40).  No, He did not abolish those 613 commandments (Matthew 5:17), He simply summarized them into two basic truths----love God and love your neighbor as yourself. 

However, Galatians 5:14 reduces all the commandments of the Old Testament---and, for that matter, the New Testament too---into one summary commandment----love your neighbor as yourself! 

The word love in the Greek is “agapaō”, yes, “agape love” that is the strongest kind of love possible, the kind of love where you are willing to sacrifice your own needs for the needs of another.  This was the word for love that Jesus used the most, e.g. Matthew 5:43-44, Matthew 22:37,39, Mark 12:30-32, Luke 10:27, John 3:16, John 13:34, and John 15:12.  In fact, Jesus used “agapaō” at least 47 times as recorded in the four gospels. 

Who is your neighbor?  The Greek word for neighbor written here is “plēsion” that has several meanings in English, including, a friend or any other person, and, according to Jesus, any other person irrespective of nationality or religion with whom you meet.  Like most of the commandments of the Bible, it is humanly practically impossible to meet the standards required to fulfill these commands.  The only way to meet the command to love others biblically is to be filled with the Holy Spirit where it is the love of Christ, not simply your own limited human love, that manifests itself in truly loving and caring for others. 

I like to think of my current neighbors, I’ll call them “B” and “S”.  They exemplify loving their neighbor as well as any neighbors my wife and I have ever had.  When my wife was going through a family crisis and I was 2,000 miles away, “S” came to my wife’s aid and later my wife said that without “S” being with her, she could not have worked through the crisis.  When I was attempting to cut down an old tree by my house, it started leaning toward our huge picture window.  I had my wife run to get “B” and he responded immediately and figured out how to change the direction of where the tree would fall.  B and S have transported us to and from our hometown airport, watched over our house when we have been gone for extended periods, picked up our mail, helped us in many other ways, and always have shown interest in what’s happening in our lives.  In short, they exemplify the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.  We would not hesitate to call them at 3 in the morning if we needed their help.  To me, that is the true definition of who your closest, most trustworthy friends are, those who would respond no matter the inconvenience.

You cannot love another person unless you first love yourself.  To love yourself, biblically, does not mean that you have an Adonis complex, that you love yourself in a selfish, egotistical manner as the world value system teaches.  Biblical self-love is self-acceptance and self-acceptance is possible only with the innate realization that you were created by God and you accept whatever He gave to you with respect to appearance, personality, abilities, gifts, and, yes, whatever limitations you have as a human being.  Nowhere in the Bible does it say that you are to hate yourself.  In fact, if you do not love yourself you are rejecting God who is first and foremost a God of love for His creation (John 3:16, Romans 8:37-39).  

Basically, the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself is to fulfill “The Golden Rule” that you treat others as you want/need to be treated.  

“Only God can give us a selfless love for others, as the Holy Spirit changes us from within. This is one reason we must receive Christ, for apart from His Spirit we can never be freed from the chains of selfishness, jealousy, and indifference. Will others see Christ's love in your life today?” – Billy Graham