The two most important commandments that God gave us, is to love God and love your neighbor.
Deuteronomy 6:5 (CSB)
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
This is the greatest command God has given us, we must learn to put God before everyone and everything else in our lives. This command from the Old Testament of the Bible, is again spoken about in the New Testament by Jesus to a Pharisee.
Matthew 22:37-40 (CSB)
He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
Leviticus 19:18 (CSB)
“Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.“
Love your neighbor is spoken about in both the Old and New Testaments. Loving your neighbor means everyone. This command of God isn’t always easy to keep, as all of us have at one time or another had arguments and fallen out with people. Sadly, it’s human nature to have the occasional argument with others as we don’t always agree on things. We have to try to get along but sometimes we can’t and we have to just agree to disagree. The point to remember though is we are all individual people with different opinions but we are also all God’s children, so we should try our best to get along with others.
Loving your neighbor doesn’t mean you have to agree with everything they say or do but loving your neighbor does help to build strong communities and not just locally but further away too. It teaches us to be there for people at times of need, whether we agree with their opinions or not. It’s often easy to be cross with others but we should never hold a grudge because a grudge can last for many years and be detrimental to all concerned.
If we fill our heart, soul and mind with love for God, we get closer to fulfilling the command to love our neighbor.
Onward Christian Soldiers 