How to love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:31)!

Love is a very interesting word because everyone seems to know what it means but it’s not really as easy to define as you would think. So when Jesus says “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31, Matt 22: 39, Luke 10:27) you wonder what does that really mean. In today’s article, I try to answer this question. I hope that after reading it, you would not only know how to love your neighbor as yourself but you would be loving your neighbor as yourself.

Jesus was not the first person to give this command in the Bible, this particular command was first mentioned in Lev 19:18 and it was quoted a few more times by the disciples of Jesus in (Rom 13:9, James 2:8, Gal 5:14). The most intriguing thing about this statement for me is that in combination with the command to Love God, it is seen as the summary of all the laws.

What does it mean to LOVE?

You do to others what you want them to do to you

You love people regardless of anything (unconditional)

You love them whether they reciprocate or not

You love them even when they don’t like you

You love them even when you don’t like what they are doing

You love them even when you bring them to justice 

You love them enough to say NO

You love them enough to say Enough

You always love them.

Because 

you could be them and 

they could be you!

What does it mean to love?

I got my first definition of unconditional love from a book called Real Love by Greg Baer. If you have not read this book, I recommend it highly. Here is the definition I got from him with some modification. 

Love is desiring the best for another person, without regards to what benefit you would receive.

I have since discovered that there is another side to that definition that would make it complete

Love is – Not withholding anything good from another person as long as they are willing to receive it.

So I see Love as a two-sided coin that has these 2 definitions. I have asked God to help me love like this for the last 15+ years. And I must tell you that I have failed a couple of times but all the same, the benefits are amazing. In a few words, what you get is peace and joy.

I know you may be so curious to know how, because you already know what it means to love your neighbor as yourself. Please be patient because once the meaning of love is properly grasped, how to love flows automatically.

You Love your neighbor as yourself by desiring the best things for them.

This means you desire that they are at peace. You desire that they have all the money and resources they need. You desire that they are in good health and that they have a blissful life after this life on earth.

How does this play out? It means that when you think of the other person, you have good and prosperous thoughts about them.

True love starts from thoughts. You can love people you have never met. You can love people who don’t look like you. You can even love people who want to kill you because you can desire good for people who desire evil for you.

I know that this is possible because we see it first in scriptures (Luke 23:24) and also to some extent I have seen it in my life. I believe this is the state that God intended for all humans to live in. A state where we care so much about our neighbor that we are willing to make some sacrifice for them to move forward.

Take note that the first step in loving your neighbor as yourself does not have to do with action. The place to begin is in your thoughts.

Your thoughts about everyone around you should always be thoughts of how to help them be better, live better, be fruitful, have peace and joy. 

It is not unusual to imagine that what this scripture is saying is that you keep doing good things to everyone around you until you get burnt out because their needs never end, there are some mean people out there and we all have limited resources.

But this is not what the scripture is talking about. Let me explain. Love should start with having positive, kind and loving thoughts towards everyone no matter how bad they are.

How can we do this? This is how I do it. I really believe that if I were to be in the shoes of any person, be born by their parents, go through the experiences they have been through and have the exact same DNA that they have, I would be them. So I really see others as if they were me just with a different skin and a different upbringing.

This really makes it possible for me to think positive, kind and loving thoughts towards mean and wicked people.

Don’t get me wrong, I still want those who need to be locked up, locked up. And I know that locking them up is sometimes the best thing for them and all the other people around them that I love equally.

You love your neighbor as yourself by not withholding anything good from them as long as they are willing to receive it.

How does this play out practically?

I have made up my mind that the best thing that can happen to anyone around me is for me to be well equipped to be of the uttermost use to them. 

For example, if I have enough money to help someone with $5000. It is a good thing. But for me to have $5000 available for him means that in the past I had taken some actions on myself, that made it possible to save $5000 and have it available to help my friend.

This means then, that in order to love my neighbor and not withhold good from her, I must invest in myself much more than I invest in others today so that I can have a greater capacity to invest in other people tomorrow.

How do I love my neighbor as myself by investing in myself?

This means that I must connect properly with God my creator. That is why our Lord Jesus informed us that the first and most important commandment is to love the Lord your God with all…(Matt 22:37).

Connecting with God daily in prayers, repentance, meditating on God’s love and greatness, fellowship with the Holy Spirit and receiving instructions is the first and most important investment you can make in your life. This is so because connecting with God has both a natural and eternal benefit.

When I connect with God, I know that I am benefiting a lot but at the same time I know that I am being loaded with enough love to spread to my neighbors. When you are filled with love, you can share love. 

When you are filled with love you won’t look down on another person because they are of another skin colour and when someone who is racist comes around you with contempt, you would be able to see past their hatred and see the evil that makes them do what they do.

After investing in your connection with God, you must devote time to always become better! Invest in personal development or growth in every area of your life. I have come to learn that this is a great way to help people.

When I don’t plan my growth (I learned this from John Maxwell), I won’t grow much and my value would not be much in many ways. I would still be valuable for company, and a few other things but imagine if I was much better at doing one thing and I have a lot of resources that I can draw from. Then I can always help at a higher capacity.

How do I love my neighbor by investing in them?

If I spend all my time developing myself and I don’t have any time to develop others, then I am withholding some good for my neighbor. There has to be a balance.

How do we draw that balance? Here is how I see Jesus do it. He gives the early mornings to connecting with God (personal growth) (Mark 1:35) and gives the afternoon and evening to the people. Then He gives the night again to God and sometimes all night.

What does that mean? We schedule our time with God and time for learning and guard it Jealously – Although we remain flexible enough for God to change our schedule. We also schedule a time to be available to be of help to people that God sends our way.

Do you have a schedule for your time with God? Do you have a schedule or growth plan? Please share with me in the comments section below.

How to love your neighbor as yourself – Non Christians! 

We need to define neighbor for the purpose of this article. Like Jesus, I define neighbor as anyone that you get in contact with, such as people you meet at stores, your colleagues at work or school, poeple who live in the same community as you do and in fact every human being on earth 😀!

So how do you love people who do not see Jesus as their Lord and saviour or who do not even believe there is a God?

1. Desire good for them – what is the best thing that has happened to you? For me it is salvation. So I desire that every person I meet and in fact I desire that everyone on earth will accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.
2. Pray for them – I always pray for everyone around me and we do it even as a family. This should flow easily from the first point. When we desire a miracle for someone it automatically pushes us to ask the miracle-working God for a miracle.
3. Share with them – when we have prayed, we must not withhold the truth from our neighbors. Develop genuine friendships with them. We must share what we know with them. But we must do it in such a way that we do not violate their freedom. We must offer our love and knowledge of Jesus, not impose. We must always give room for people to accept or reject our offer of generosity. We know that as long as Jesus is in us, they are being exposed to His love through us anyway.
4. Continue to meet their needs as best as you can and learn what you can from them
5. Become better so you can help them better.

How do you love your neighbor as yourself- Other disciples of Jesus

We love them the same way.

1. Desire the best for them – the best thing is for them to have a better and more fruitful relationship with God
2. Pray for them – to have this relationship and to keep moving towards more joy, peace, love and obedience to God
3. Share all that you are learning with them without imposing on them
4. Continue to meet their needs as best as you can and also learn from them.
5. Become better so you can help them better 
6. Partner with them to get even multiplied results 

How do you love your neighbor as yourself ?- Someone Hostile

In this case we assume the person is not a believer and is hostile 

1. Desire the best for them
2. Pray for them – Use the prayer for lost souls
3. Share with them mostly by your lifestyle as much s they can observe from your response to their hostility. I find that when I have a genuine loving thought in my heart for people that are initially hostile, they are sometimes shocked by my lack of reciprocal hatred.
4. Meet their needs when it happens that you are opportuned to.
5. Continue to become better
6. Take the necessary legal action if need be.

Some practical ways to love your neighbor as yourself 

1. Prayer- there is nothing better than this
2. Listen to them (be hospitable and build genuine friendships).
3. When they have a need that you can meet, prayerfully meet it but don’t work alone. Invite a friend or family member at least for the prayers 
4. Invite them for celebrations or for dinner at your home.

I am usually very careful with sharing things to do because I find that a lot of people want to rush to do something and then they get burnt out and discouraged.

God is love and love should originate from God. The first way for you to love your neighbor as yourself is to bring them into your special time with God. That is to pray for them. Do this a lot and as often as you can. Please always start here.

If you are a disciple of Jesus and you know deep inside you that Jesus wants you to attract other people to Him, then I encourage you to take my Free BiVo Minister course! I am sure you will want to share it with all your Christian Friends.

What would Jesus Do? If you want to explore this though some more, I encourage you to read the book – In His Steps by Charles Sheldon. This is one of the first books that started me on my life long journey of loving like Jesus.