The Christian Corner: Love Thy Neighbor as Thy Self

Why should we love our neighbors? As a matter of fact, who is a neighbor? Well, if we term neighbor by persons living into very close proximity to our home, we can simply say that a neighbor is someone who lives beside or close to your house. But a neighbor is much more that physical location. We are people of interaction and therefore we partake in activities that foster interaction and hence develop some kind of long lasting relationship with those we interact with on a regular basis. Those people who we interact with every so often eventually becomes your neighbor and often times closest of friends. We develop church neighbors, work neighbors, school neighbors, hobby neighbor, sport neighbors, business neighbors, community neighbors, just to name a few. When we develop a neighborly relationships with particular groups we interact with, there develops some kind of trust among parties. But how important is it to have good relations with our neighbors? What did Jesus say about how we should treat our neighbors? It is very important to God as it is written as the second commandment given to Moses by God.

Matthew 22 verses 34 – 40

[34] But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together.
[35] Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
[36] Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
[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 neighbor as thyself.
[40] On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

This love they neighbor as they self-command is very critical in having and living in a peaceful world. Everyone is born with a body and I would like to believe a consciousness within that body. That consciousness lets us be aware of who we are, how we look, how we sound, what we like, what we dislike etc. That consciousness is called life. Now, unless you are a troubled individual who needs help loving oneself, it is natural for a conscious body to love itself. What do we mean by love itself? Well for one you take good care of yourself. You feed your body right, you ensure that you are properly homes, you take care of your health, you would never back stab your own self, and you are truthful to your own self. Now if all these actions were replicated by everyone to each other’s neighbors, imagine how beautiful the world would be.

But the truth is that the world is not doing half of what it should do as it relates to loving thy neighbor as thy self. It is mostly about self love and ones selfish needs. These kind of practices is a strong breeding ground for the breeding of evil. Whites hating their black neighbors, blacks despising their white neighbors. Leaders misleading and lying to its neighborly citizens. Leaders spying and lying to each other’s nations. Wars and conflicts are plentiful in countries where leaders have no love for their neighbors. Bring it down to citizen level and we can see communities where people live beside each other and do not know each other’s name, number or have never told a good morning. Society prefers to live in a virtual neighborhood, where most of our friends and neighbors are likes we receive on social media. We pass each other daily rushing to and fro our busy lives without even noticing your homeless neighbor on the corner of the street begging, singing, drawing and even dancing for change to buy food. We lie to our friends and neighbors and some of us has even gone further and covet what belongs to our neighbors. We have become so un-neighborly in the sight of God. But once there is life, there is hope and change can always happen.

It all starts by each of us as individuals and as neighbors start doing a little good deed for those we consider to be our neighbor. Whether it be giving advice, helping out with some cash, visiting them at the hospital, taking care of their pet or kids when they are not at home, inviting them for dinner etc. It all starts with the little good we do, but it doesn't stop there. We have to be truthful and develop a good trust level with our neighbors. We have to treat them as how we would want others to treat us.