IF SO, ARE WE LOVING THEM AS OURSELVES?
by Rolley Haggard
BreakPoint.
The apocryphal story is told of a man who, hearing Christ's reply to the Pharisees regarding the Greatest Commandment, and having purer motives than they, subsequently went to Jesus for further clarification.
“Master,” he said, “I really do want to please God. I want to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and might. How, practically speaking, do I do that?”
As the story goes, the Lord looked at him and, perceiving that he really was in earnest, said, “The First and Greatest Commandment is fulfilled by obeying the Second Commandment, which is like the First. You demonstrate that you indeed love God when you go and love your neighbor as yourself. The one who says he loves God whom he has not seen, but does not love his neighbor whom he has seen, deceives himself. In truth he loves neither. But the one who, for God's sake, loves his neighbor as himself, loves both his neighbor and God. For God loves your neighbor—indeed, He loves even your enemy—and if you also love your neighbor, then you honor God by loving what He loves. But if you do not love your neighbor like God loves him, then neither do you love God. That is why I said the Second Commandment is like the First, and why I said on these two Commandments hang all the Law and prophets.
A purely apocryphal story, to be sure. But as related scriptural truths are incorporated into the account, it provides illuminating commentary on one of the most important ideas in all the Bible: that God really wants us to take this “love your neighbor as yourself” thing seriously.
Which brings us back to the question: Are the preborn American babies who are being aborted at the rate of 3,500 per day our “neighbors”?
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Rolley Haggard is a feature writer for BreakPoint.
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