Generosity
Week 04: Loving your neighbor
One day Jesus was asked “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” (Mk. 12:28). He responded and said that the most important command in all of the Bible is to love God and to love your neighbor (Mk. 12:29-31). He said, “There is no commandment greater than these”. Jesus was teaching, in other words, that love for God and love for others is the most important form of obedience to God.
In fact, loving God and loving your neighbor seem to be two sides to the same coin. You cannot truly love God unless you love your neighbor as well (1 Jn. 4:8, 11, 20-21). Jeremiah goes as far as to say that doing justice is what it means to “know God” (Jer. 22:16). Put another way, to fail to do justice is to fail to truly know God. Doing justice is a central component of following Jesus. This is what the prophet Micah was getting at when he said, “What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). This is how God intends us to live.
God cares for the poor and vulnerable (Ps. 146:7-9; Prov. 14:31). And the obvious response to God’s saving love is to do justice (Deut. 10:17-19). To know God is to do justice. Tim Keller writes, “There is a direct relationship between a person’s grasp and experience of God’s grace, and his or her heart for justice and the poor… An encounter with grace inevitably leads to a life of justice.”
Matthew 25:35-40 — “‘For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”
Jesus said, in essence, “When you embraced the poor, you embraced me. When you loved the needy, you loved me. When you served your neighbor, you served me.” To love your neighbor is to love Jesus himself. You cannot have one without the other. To love Jesus looks like loving your neighbor.
01 – Identify someone in need. When Jesus was asked “Who is my neighbor” he told a story of a man in need. In other words, our neighbor is anyone in need. Who is someone in your life, your city, or in proximity to you who is in need?
02 – Identify the need. What do they need? Do they need food, clothing, financial support, protection, etc.? How can you love them? What would it look like to practically meet their needs?
03 – Inconvenience yourself to meet the need. Love requires inconveniencing yourself for the sake of others. This is the prerequisite of true love. Love requires that we serve others at our own cost. In fact, Jesus showed us that the ultimate form of love is laying yourself down for others (Jn. 15:13).
Recommended reading: Generous Justice by Tim Keller