Are You Loving Your Neighbors?

Mar 30

Are You Loving Your Neighbors?

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is, Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.” – Jesus (Mark 12:30-31, CSB)

It’s a lot easier to love your neighbors when they’re lovable than when you live next door to “the neighbors from hell,” I know. But when Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, He didn’t give us an out for having bad or difficult neighbors. The call was the same, whether our neighbors where best-friend material, or more akin to our enemies.

(Funnily enough, Jesus taught us to love our enemies, too (Matthew 5:43-48). Though we typically stomach that teaching better when we can maintain a buffer of a few miles between us, rather than a few feet.)

When my family moved to where we live now, I prayed that God would bless us with good neighbors. I also made a point to be intentional with getting to know our neighbors and building relationships with them after we moved in. I often tell people that we have “the best neighbors,” and we do! They’re wonderful, in so many ways!

We love them, and they love us…

But would it surprise you to know that that’s not the case across the board on our street?

Neighbor 4 and Neighbor 2 have been at odds for over a decade. (Neighbor 4 made sure to let us know right off the bat.)

And Neighbor 1 didn’t invite Neighbor 2 to their son’s birthday party, because Neighbor 4 met them first after they moved in, and had told them, “They’re not nice people,” and Neighbor 1 took Neighbor 4’s word for it.

And Neighbor 1 is also leery of Neighbor 5, because of their political leanings, proudly displayed on their front lawn every election year. Admittedly, they’ve never had a conversation with Neighbor 5, but they don’t plan to either.

We are friends with all of them, and try to highlight the best parts of each of our neighbors, every time another one brings up a “reason” to dislike or exclude them.

Do we like everything about all of our neighbors? No.

Do we agree with them on every issue? Definitely not.

But the question isn’t, “Are your neighbors lovable?” The question is, “Are you loving your neighbors?”

And this is why we will talk to all of them—any of them who want (or are willing) to have a conversation with us.

When we throw a party, we invite them all. (At least, everyone we’ve had a chance to get to know so far.)

If we know someone is under the weather, we try to bring them a meal, or make sure they don’t need groceries or help with the yard work while they’re recovering.

We drop off homemade treats with hand-written notes every Christmas, to let them know that we view each one of them as a good gift from God to us!

Whenever we find out that someone’s father was diagnosed with cancer, or their dog died, or they lost their job, or fill-in-the-blank… we mourn with them, and pray for comfort or healing or provision—whatever is appropriate.

And whenever we learn that someone got a promotion, or their driver’s license, or a new puppy, or fill-in-the-blank… we get excited with them and make a fuss about it!

Every neighbor is considered a friend by us (or a friend we just haven’t made yet). And it seems like we might be the only neighbors on our street who actually get along with every other neighbor.

But I think that’s how it’s supposed to be for Christians—as far as lies with us, at least (Romans 12:8). Because loving our neighbors in the name of Jesus is not supposed to be about having great neighbors. And it’s definitely not supposed to be about having neighbors who are like us, or who agree with us about everything.

It’s supposed to be about seeing our neighbors as people to be loved and engaged with—not just tolerated, and avoided or ignored. It’s about refusing to hate them—even if there is a “good reason” to hate them—even if everyone else does hate them.

Because everybody is lovable.

After all, God loves every single one of us.

Every one…