Do we love our neighbor?

Matt 22:35-40
35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law?36 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. KJV

I am raising children and shepherding God's people in a drastically different culture than my father did. As a matter of fact society is so different now than it was then, it is hard to find the things that are the same, if there are any. But there is one constant, one thing that has never changed and one thing that never will and that is the Word of God. And no matter how man might try to explain it away, there is no escaping the fact that Heb 12:14 says, Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: KJV.

Wow, that is a powerful statement and one that needs much consideration. What does God mean by that statement? Is He saying unless I get along with everyone around me I can't make it to Heaven? No that was not what he said at all. What He is saying is; If I have a personal relationship with Him by salvation through His So Jesus Christ and allow His Holiness to dwell within me then I can have a right relationship with my neighbor.

Our society needs a revival of "Love thy neighbor as thy self" mentality. Now some of us might ask, just as the lawyer ask Jesus in Luke 10, just who is my neighbor? This question leads us to believe that the lawyer thought that Jesus was being narrow minded and exclusive, but our Lord followed up the question with the story of the Good Samaritan. Then when the story was finished Jesus looked at the lawyer and said, "Which one of these three men was being a neighbor?"

You see, we as Christians should not be asking who is our neighbor? Trying to just get by as with little effort as possible. But we need to be asking, "To whom can I be a neighbor to today?" See, the true love of God has no boundaries, it see's no race, no color, no ethnic background, not one barrier does it have. But it allows me to view all that is around me as my neighbor and also gives me a sincere compassion for them when they are in need.

In Matt. 5:20 Jesus said unless our righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees that there is no way that we can enter into Heaven. The Pharisees lived under the principle of "Eye for and Eye, Tooth for a Tooth" and also by the rule of "You scratch my back, Ill scratch yours." But Jesus came to this world to totally expel that frame of thinking.

God's love is all-inclusive, Richard Taylor said, "the enemy, the ugly and the unlovely, the wretched who can give nothing in return, the stranger and the foreigner, the man of a different color, race, or nationality- all are the proper objects of this love which is required in the second commandment."

God help us to love as God loves and teach other to do the same.