GOING FOR THE GOLD-GOD’S GOLD THAT IS!
Part 2-Love your Neighbor as Yourself
Mark 12:30-31 (HCSB)
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
31 “The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”
We are talking about going for the Gold: God’s Gold medal that is. The two greatest joys a Christian can have is to know God intimately and to love others as yourself. Last time we talked in part one-about: Loving God with all one’s heart. Athletes strive for a gold medal; Christians should strive to know and please God. Tonight, we are talking about the second Joy.
1. Loving your neighbor as yourself
When it is talking about neighbors it means all in life or you come into contact with. This includes your wife, your children your mom and dad, etc. You may have never thought about it this way, but they are your closet neighbors.
John 13:35(ESV)
35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Again, as I have said in the past this is not a dress rehearsal. This is the one shot you get in life. Go for it. Go for God’s Gold! Trust God to stretch you!
There used to be a thing called “trickle-down economics. It meant if you blessed the top business owners with tax cuts, etc. then they would hire more people and the economy would boom.
2. I believe in trickle-down Love Economics.
All Love for your neighbor is a by-product of Loving God, while things like marriage seminars can be beneficial if they teach what I am talking about. The reality is your full of God’s Love you are like tea-pot boiling over with God’s love for All love for your husband/wife/family/etc. comes from Knowing God. This is what I have experience in my own life. If I love God and seek him with my whole heart, everything else just falls into place. I got a big heart of love for people. And if I don’t I won’t; have that big heart.
Romans 12:1,2 (HCSB)
1 Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your spiritual worship.
2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
3. I believe that if you love others as yourself it will be demonstrated by love in action
James 1:22-25(HCSB)
22 But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
23 Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his own face in a mirror.
24 For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
25 But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but one who does ⌊good⌋ works—this person will be blessed in what he does.
· If you love others as yourself, you will share your faith. If you are more concerned about people liking you or looking foolish then you love yourself more. God is helping me to be much stronger in this area.
· If you love others you will help them in any way you can
· These are not extra credit: they are commands period! God actually expects us to do them. The neat thing is it can be a burden or a joy to love others, you get to choose!
