We Love Our Neighbor As We Love Ourselves

Over the last couple of years I have seen the Messianic movement continue to sway back and forth like a ship being tossed about in stormy seas. Sometimes we are fine, on top of the waves and we are fine, other times we are wondering if the water we are taking in will drown the ship and kill the crew. This appears to be more prevalent in our movement than in others. I believe this is because we are genuinely looking to honor God the best way possible. To understand His thoughts, to understand his desires, what His motives are, and why he does things.

This is a noble cause, yet we struggle with direction, authority, and accountability. All things we should be better at considering the premise of our faith is that we are seeking the ancient path, which we believe brings blessings through our obedience.

So let’s look at what we have been commanded to be obedient to. Does God actually layout a path for us? We believe he does or we wouldn’t be here. However, we at HFF have been accused multiple times of being too basic, too much like a church. There isn’t enough deep teaching. What if the deeply profound things had a simple solution. What if it was us who complicated it?

Turn with me to Exodus 20.

“And God spoke all these words:
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other God’s other than me”

He then goes on to give the ten commandments.

Remember the context of this time frame. The Hebrew’s were just brought out of slavery. They witnessed the Red Sea parting, miracle after miracle. They witnessed the Lord in ways we currently do not. They heard his voice and were so fearful that they sent Moses to talk to him.

Fast forward to the coming of Yeshua. I believe Yeshua is God. What that looks like is not up to me to argue. It is beyond my mortal brains ability to define.

So when Yeshua was being tested by some of the most scholarly religious leaders of that time they asked him “Teacher what is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew and Mark both testify to this exchange.

Yeshua refers back to the Shema in Deuteronomy to establish that God is ONE (echad). There is only one, not two, not three, ONE who manifests himself in multiple ways. Yeshua invokes the fact that the one true God is to be loved with all our heart, soul, mind. That this was the most important. Then tells us to love our neighbor like we love our self.

Well I think that is where we get side tracked. It isn’t our understanding of the 613 old testament commandments, it isn’t the 1,050 commandments in the New testament.

We get side tracked at loving the Lord our God with everything we have and that we are, it is loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Everything we have is broken. Some of us have been abused, sexually, verbally, emotionally. Some of us have lost loved ones, been abandoned. Some of us hate the words that come out of our mouth to someone we love, who we can become in certain situations.

Some of you will never get that closure from the one who hurt you. So let me be the one to stand in the gap. On behalf of the Father’s who have failed, the husbands who have left, bosses who have broken your Spirit, Pastors who didn’t meet your expectations, I apologize. Human’s fail, we fail. I have failed. God has not failed you, He is and has always been enough.

There are magazines at every checkout pointing out your flaws and why you aren’t beautiful, there are husbands and wives in movies and novels that point out where your spouse fails daily. They depict something that isn’t achievable. They depict a false perfection. It isn’t reality, it isn’t real.

These types of fiction leave us looking in the mirror at our crows feet, our love handles, our lack of ability to wow other individuals. All of these things together lead to bullying, depression, anxiety and alter how we love, how we think. They cause a chain reaction in our ability to trust, live, and ultimately love.

We do love our neighbor as ourselves. We love ourselves with a tainted love. We love ourselves only in part. Not with everything we were created to be. And thus we love our neighbor and God with that same broken love.

So if Yeshua states that the 613 laws of the Old Testament hang off of loving God with everything and loving our neighbor as ourselves, how do we ever expect to understand the obedience to those commandments and the principles of them if our original lens is skewed.

Some of us need to go back. Allow the Lord to deliver us from the brokenness of our love for ourselves. See ourselves through the lens of the one who Created us and remove the skewed perspective we love ourselves with. Then re-approach the other deeper things of the commandments. Approach them without the failure of our Fathers, our husbands and wives, our political society and all the other deficiencies we see. Cause then and only then will we love ourselves, our neighbors, and God the way He created us to.

Then we will realize God was and always has been enough. Enough to deliver us from the pitfalls of this life. To find deliverance from our fears, failures, and past hurts. You are fearfully and wonderfully made to help usher in the kingdom of God on this earth. You won’t do so if you keep all the commandments and don’t love God and your neighbor. You will minimize God’s ability to take you to new heights. Tomorrow is First Fruits for many, the single greatest moment in the history of man kind. Where Yeshua came forth to proclaim that death had been defeated. That the powers of darkness had been defeated.

Whatever power of darkness that has robbed you of seeing yourself in the way God created you to be has been defeated. You just have to proclaim it, God has provided this victory for all of His children.

Through this we can each play our role in stopping the ship from wreaking in the sea of chaos and start to sail on a direct path towards the return of Messiah. With Yeshua commanding the helm of our ship.

 Luke tells us there is wedding feast coming, the invites have been sent, and many will return to their daily duties and not attend. I for one do not want to be found refusing the invite to the table of the Lord.