Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

You shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. Leviticus 19:18

Like most of us, I’m inherently self-centered. It’s simply natural for me to put my wants and needs ahead of others. In my addiction, this was amplified as my appetite for drugs consumed my decision making. In the end, I sacrificed everything and everyone to my pills. I became a terrible person, selfishly doing whatever I wanted, not seeming to care what I destroyed or who I hurt.

Recovery then, has been a process of learning to choose the opposite life. In my addiction, I didn’t think about how my decisions affected my wife and kids. In recovery, I’m learning to ask how every decision affects them. In my addiction, I did whatever I wanted. In recovery, I’m learning to ask what others might want. I may find that this requires some sacrifice of my will, but I also find that I like myself far more and that I’m a far better person when I consider the needs and desires of those around me.

This is the message of today’s passage. In it, God reiterated several instructions governing the Israelites interaction with each other. Care for the poor. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Seek justice. Don’t be slanderous or hateful. Then, he summed it all up with this statement – You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

It’s such a simple rule. If we all followed it, we’d all be far better people and the world would be a far better place. The rule though, exposes our greatest flaw as human beings – We’re naturally self-centered, doing what we want. We don’t naturally walk through our day, asking what’s right or what we can do for others. Rather, we naturally seek our own will, doing that which we think is best for us. Loving others as ourselves may be a simple rule, but it lies in complete opposition to our very nature.

As Christians, we know that being a good person doesn’t save us. We’re saved only by faith In Christ. If we truly follow Christ though, our faith must radically alter our behavior. How should I now live? Today’s rule is a good place to start. In every interaction, we must become willing to surrender our will, asking, How would I want to be treated? Then, we must make our decisions according to that rule. In doing so, we’ll become far better people: kind, loving, truthful, and Christlike.