LOVE GOD. LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.

Luke 10:27

But what if my neighbor is impossible to love? What if my spouse behaves badly? What if my parents messed up my life? What if my child lives a dark life of rebellion? What if my boss continually undermines my best effort?

God’s commandment to love is about obedience, not feeling. As Christians, we are called to: (a) love God, and (b) love our neighbor.

It is important to get the sequence right: Love God first. Love our neighbor second. We don't love God through our neighbor. We love our neighbor through God. We can appreciate the Divine wisdom of this commandment when we encounter a difficult neighbor. 

So, who is our neighbor? Is it the Joneses who live across the street in my upper middle class neighborhood? Or it is that drugged-up homeless guy who begs for money at the stoplight downtown?

If God wanted us to love only those people who are nice to us, or only those people who are easy to love, or only those people who appeal to us or agree with us, or only those people who look like us and have our same values, or only those people who go to our church, or only those people who prove they love us more than we love them, He would have been explicit in saying so. From everything I’ve read, God didn’t struggle with finding the right words for any occasion. 

How should we love God? With everything. With all of our being: heart, soul, strength and mind. Hold nothing in reserve. 

How do we love our neighbor? We love our neighbor as well as we love ourselves (The Message). To be clear, this is not a subjective standard. We love God, not ourselves, first. We love our neighbor through God. We love our neighbor with the full objective measure of God's love. When we love God first, we can't help but love all of humankind in full obedience of God's commandment.   

God's commandment is clear:

1. Love God.

2. Love your neighbor.

Nothing more is required. Nothing less is acceptable.