Love...

Jesus taught throughout the gospels to love God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:38-39, Mark 12:30-31, and Luke 10:27). Then in John 15:12, Jesus reiterates with, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you (NIV).” So, love…whether for God, your neighbor or yourself, is a key element that runs throughout all of the gospels. When we look at Paul’s writings, we can see the same theme.

Paul talks about the importance of loving God on several different occasions in his letters, but probably the most beautiful verse comes from 1 Corinthians 2:9 where he says, “…”No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."

In Galatians 5:14, Paul says, “The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Whether you are holding a fellow Christian accountable, feeding the poor, caring for children, or anything else; you should do it in love. “The same love and help that we extend to those who are our friends and close relatives we should extend to all those who are in need. Conversely, those who are in need have a claim on our love. We need to consider them as our neighbors… (Ateek).”

Something that is often forgotten about loving our neighbor as we love ourselves is that we do in fact need to love ourselves. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own.” I think this verse points out that loving our body and treating it with godly respect is important because it is not our own. It is a beautiful creation of God.

Ateek, Naim. " Who Is My Neighbor?." http://0-vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com.library.regent.edu/hww/results/results_single_fulltext.jhtml;hwwilsonid=UFXA1F1QPBXW1QA3DIMSFGOADUNGIIV0

I little tidbit I wrote for class about Grace vs. Law

In Galatians 4:6 Paul writes, “Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ""Abba", Father." I think in order to fully understand what the concept of “grace vs. law” is we must fully understand what it means to be a child of a loving father. A child of a loving father has a dad who is there for him through thick and thin. Who loves him no matter what, but wants what is best for that child above all else. A loving father will discipline that child to ensure the child understands the rules he has set up for the safety and protection of the child. Once this relationship has been established, the child will then yearn for the approval of the father; at first so he does not receive discipline and then so he experiences the father’s love to the fullest. So God, being our heavenly Father may say to us, like he said to the Isrealites, “Hear O Isreal” in Deuternomy 6:4 (NIV). “God's command that Israel “hear” is not so different from a parent asking a child, “Are you listening?,” by which the parent really means, “If you are listening you will do what I ask you.” To hear God is to obey God (Bader-Scott).” So we have grace because we are saved through Christ because of God’s love for us, BUT we follow the law because of our love, devotion, and respect for God our “Abba, Father”. While our attempts to follow the law may look to God like the indiscernible scribblings of a 4-year-old, he knows our heart and can look upon us through his Son and say “well done, my good and faithful servant!… (Luke 19:17 NIV).”

Bader-Saye, Scott. "Listening: Authority and Obedience." The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics. Hauerwas, Stanley and Samuel Wells (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2006. Blackwell Reference Online. 23 September 2010