When Do I Love My Neighbor? | Love Your Neighbor | Pastor Johnny Mitcham
Love your neighbor
When do I love my neighbor?
“I give you a new command: Love each other. You must love each other as I have loved you. All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.” John 13:34-35 NCV
SOUL TATTOO: Loving my neighbor is not about my feelings it’s about my obedience.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. John 15:12-13 NIV
When to love your neighbor according to the World
- When your neighbor earns the love from you
- When your feel like loving your neighbor
- When your neighbor loves you first
When to love your neighbor according to the Word
- Whenever you are around your neighbor
- When your neighbor is in a crisis
- When your neighbor is celebrating
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” Matthew 5:14-16 NIV
3 questions and answers to think about when you are loving your neighbor.
- What do I want them to know???
- What do I want them to feel?
- What do I want them to do?
“Am I more satisfied with my obedience or the results of my obedience?”
SOUL TATTOO: Loving my neighbor is not about my feelings it’s about my obedience.
7-10 My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
11-12 My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
13-16 This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.
17-18 God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
19 We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.
20-21 If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both. 1 John 4:7-21 MSG