Dr. Ron Sumners
July 18, 2004
Many years ago, four thousand runners answered the gun for the start of the Madrid Marathon in Spain. Toward the end of the race, two men, both age thirty-six were far ahead of the pack. Near the finish line, one of them was suddenly taken with severe leg cramps, and was unable to continue. The other leader stopped, picked up the stricken competitor and carried him across the finish line.
An old poem says:
I said to love
“Thy love is much too hard.
I cannot follow thee.”
Love stretched forth mighty arms and said,
“Come child, I’ll carry thee.”
Today’s scripture contains a phrase we never should go beyond until we are sure of its implications. The phrase reads: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10:27).
Let’s stop for a moment and simply drink it in. What are the implications of this commandment? How do we manifest our love for God? Love for our neighbor is love for God with a practical application. We love God by showing love to others. If we don’t show love to people then we do not love God!
We need to position ourselves in God’s presence and give thanks that he is a loving God. We give thanks for the gift of life. We give thanks that we are moving toward the blessed state of fulfillment that we need and want.
We can say, “Thank you Lord,” a thousand times. We can say, “I love you Lord,” all the day long and still not understand the implications of the command to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength!
The command to love God cannot be understood as long as we make the mistake of regarding the command to love our neighbor as a separate command. They are not two separate things.
They are one in the same.
Jesus has taken us beyond an understanding of love of God and neighbor in any chronological way. According to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, love of God and neighbor are inseparable. We cannot say that we love God if at the same time we hate another person. If we have animosity or hatred in our heart for a brother, then the affirmation of our love for God becomes a self-delusion at best and an outright lie at worst!
We show the depth of our love for God in the depth of our love and concern for the people that God has placed in our lives.
If our concern for our brothers and sisters is shallow, so too our love for God is shallow. It doesn’t matter how often we withdraw to church and offer words of love and praise and thanks to God. Those words are hollow and empty and pointless if we have not expressed love for our brothers. God is not a doting, old grandfather type who can be manipulated with our words. He knows our heart and actions as well as our words. Love for God will be manifested in love for others!
Stop and think! Stop and reflect for a moment! At this moment reach deep within your soul and tell yourself the truth that God already knows. Can you see the full implication of what this scripture means? If you have expressed love to others, those closest to you and those who have been estranged, then you know that you understand what God’s love is all about. You will not have to tell God that you love Him. He will know. You will not have to tell the world that you love God. They will know!
If we tell people that we have faith in God, we can’t expect them to believe us unless we demonstrate our faith through the kind of life that we live.
It is interesting to note that the Greek word for “fellowship” is “generosity”. It literally means to share everything with each other. To prove ourselves worthy of the Christian fellowship, we must be generous. That means that we must be willing to give ourselves. Our self is our most precious possession. That giving of our self to Him and to each other is exactly what God requires!
James tells us that it is hypocrisy to say to another, “Be warmed and filled my needy friend, and then not help that brother.”
People’s tendency not to care and share is illustrated in the story of a conversation between two farmers.
The first farmer said to the second farmer, “If you had two fields would you be willing to share one of them?”
“Of course,” said the farmer.
“If you had two houses, you couldn’t live in both, so would you share the other?”
“Of course! Absolutely!”
“If you had two cars, would you be willing to give one to your neighbor who had no car?”
“Yes indeed!”
“Suppose you had two horses. Would you give one to your neighbor in need?”
“No. I couldn’t do that.”
“Why not? You have agreed to giving all those other things, why not the horse?”
“Because I have two horses!”
There is a story of an inner city pastor who was making his daily rounds in ministering to the poor. He stopped in front of a small, broken-down house, the home of a poor family in which there were two sons. The younger of the two boys was physically handicapped. As the pastor parked his car in front of the house, he was greeted enthusiastically by the older brother. “Wow, your shiny, new car looks really great,” said the boy. “Where did you get it?” The pastor replied, “You know, son, I don’t make much money in my work and I couldn’t afford to buy a car like this for myself. But I have a brother in Houston who makes a lot of money in the oil business. He gave me this car.” The boy looked up at the clergyman and said, “I wish I could be a brother like that!”
He might have said, as many of us would, “I wish I had a brother like that.” But that is not what he said. He said, “I wish I could be a brother like that!” That boy was in on the secret of life’s true meaning and purpose. We all should want to be a brother like that!
Caring is everything. There is no other way to make yourself rich in the sight of God. There is no other way to experience genuine wholeness of life.
In his letter to the Ephesians, a supremely confident Paul says, “If you read my words, you will have some idea of the depth that I see in the mystery of Christ” (Eph. 3:4). What is it that Paul sees? In his words, he sees God’s secret plan which is revealed to the world in Jesus Christ.
What Paul sees is the answer to the one big question we begin to ask ourselves at a very tender age, and we continue to ask as long as we live. “Why did God make me? Why did God make us?”
Paul summed it all up in Ephesians 1:14. That summation consists of five little words. These five words are the essence of the command to love the Lord with all your heart, soul mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself. Paul said that God made us “to be full of love.”
If we could ever capture that one simple concept, wars would cease, conflicts would be civil, divorce would be unknown, no more church splits, no more shattered friendships, no more broken promises, no more hunger in the world, no more battered children, no more abused and abandoned wives.
Jackie DeShannon said it in a popular song of years ago, “What the world needs now is love, sweet love. It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of.” Her sentiment comes in a poor second to the directive of Holy Scripture. Love God! Love your neighbor! Be full of love!
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