Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
A ministry partner of mine shared a story that was quite sobering when thinking about the way we love our neighbor. He had successfully managed to invite an international student to one of his college outreach events. He created space for her to connect because he knew that she was at least curious about Christianity, and he was ready to share the Gospel. After he gave his devo, he made his way through the crowd to offer her a Bible before she left. The next week she showed up at his office unannounced, slapping a book down on his desk.
“Respectfully, I’m not reading yours until you read mine.”
He stared down at the Qur’an covering the daily clutter on his desk, and looked up to see that she was already gone. This story made me pause. What is the most loving thing I could do for a neighbor like this?
As I swam in God’s grace this week, asking and wondering what He had to teach me, I came to the conclusion that love is fully realized by being known. While there is nothing wrong with giving a Bible to someone who doesn’t know Jesus, it doesn’t necessarily communicate the full picture of love. I think that is what the student, intentionally or not, was revealing about love. Compelling love does not just see—love knows.
Consider the love the Father has for us. We experience God’s love in great depth not only because God has chosen to reveal Himself to us, but because He fully knows us and has chosen to love us. Love is fully realized by being known.
Our methods of evangelism and discipleship reveal a lot about what we believe about our neighbors. I’m not asking you to “try out” the faith of your neighbor, but I am asking you to know your neighbor. Imagine that my friend decides to read the Qur’an. I believe that decision would show the student he cares enough about her to take the time to know what she believes. I fear we too quickly see people who aren’t Christian as someone to convert, not people who already bear the image of God.
At the same time, this decision communicates just how important it is to him that she reads his Bible too. I believe we serve a God who would do anything possible to help His people find their way back to Him. To meet our neighbors where they are and be willing to walk with them in that space reveals the willingness of the Father to send His Son to earth in order to meet us where we are and lead us back to Him. Jesus was never quick to dangle a carrot and wait for us to come. He came to us, He walked with us, He understood us, and only then did he make and show us the way.
I recognize engaging with a different faith can feel scary or threatening; it may not even be a different faith, but rather maybe a different lifestyle or occupation that feels foreign to what you know. But we have proof in God’s Word that there is something good and true about taking the time to get to know what your neighbor loves and worships. Consider Paul’s pursuit of the Greeks at Areopagus in Acts 17. Paul’s speech and conduct suggests that he did not just project his faith onto everyone around him. Instead, he met the people on their own turf and on their own terms, and he took the time to get to know about them for the sake of connecting with them over the truth of the Gospel.
What is true about our neighbor is found in Acts 17:22-34: God has given them breath and life (25), God created them (26), God chose their time and place (26), God desires that they seek and reach out for and find Him (27), God is near to them (27b), they are His offspring (28). Because our neighbor walks just as much within the boundaries of God’s love and care as we do, our neighbor is worthy of being known, worthy of relationship and worthy of receiving sincere love.
The way we pursue our neighbor says everything about what we believe about God and about them. The way we treat our neighbor as a Christian shows them everything about the image we bear or distort. The love they receive from us is the love they may expect to receive from the God we worship. The question is, are you willing to live out the reality that Jesus has a place at the table for them, too? If everyone bears the image of God, how much more beautiful would your neighbor be to you if you saw them as someone who reveals more about our Creator?
Any kind of love we extend to a neighbor must be aligned with what Jesus believes about them. Jesus believes they are worthy of being known, being loved, and being His. I encourage you to sit with this truth and ask how God may be inviting you into a more relational, intentional, and transformational pursuit of our second greatest command. God wants to partner with you in making His love known to your neighbor and increasingly more known to you.
