21-Day-Fast Devotional - Day 09: Loving Your Neighbor
Loving Your Neighbor
written by Pastor harold Boyd
Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”
Mark 12:29-31
This scripture is a response to a question from the chief priests and teachers to Jesus. They did not ask the question in search of the truth, but rather to trap and find fault in Him. However, Jesus in His wisdom sums up the 10 commandments into 2, which He calls the greatest commandments for all true believers to follow. The first is to LOVE the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength. You see, it’s easy to love God during your private quiet time with Him. It’s there where you do all the talking and TELLING God how much you love Him.
The second commandment is to LOVE your neighbor as yourself. This is where it gets tough. It is in the second commandment where you die to your flesh and treat others as you would like to be treated. It’s where You SHOW God how much you LOVE Him by showing His love to those you encounter every day. Who is your neighbor? It is the World as it says in JOHN 3: 16.
“For God so loved the WORLD that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
So today let us prayerfully ask God to open our eyes to seize every opportunity to show His LOVE to everyone we encounter. In this way our neighbor may know God’s LOVE through the LOVE they see in His children. My prayer is that our words match our Actions. If we say we Love God, we must show this by loving our neighbor every day.
Check back here, on the Christ Fellowship blog every morning at 7:00am, where that day’s devotional will be posted. Feel free to share, repost, and send the devotional to anyone you feel might benefit from it. And feel free to leave a comment on the blog post sharing what God has shown you that day through your fasting and the devotional.