How do you know if you love your neighbor the way God commands?
Clearly God’s command to love is as we love ourselves, and Rev. Dr. Michael Waters of Dallas uplifts Jesus as our model: “You can be distant when you’ve not fully loved your neighbor as yourself.”
Pastor Waters explains that embracing God’s love means moving to action. “When we love, we feel the pain that others feel. When you love your neighbor as yourself, you see that that’s not just a child over there that’s hurt. That’s my child. That’s not just a community over there that’s ostracized; that’s my community. You feel the pain through proximity, and act.”
When Jesus introduced himself in Luke 4, “he went into the synagogue and He dug into the crates of Isaiah and pulled out a hit jam,” Waters poetically says. Jesus’ preaching of Isaiah’s prophecy about himself as our loving Liberator is our model: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18–19).
Jesus’ love for us is our measure for what it means to love. Being led by God’s Spirit is our method. Treasuring God’s Word guides us. Our call is to be Christlike.
