Devotional Day 2 - Love Neighbor

Hey North Church friends,

I want to remind you how profoundly loved you are:

• You are the beloved of the Father. He loves you so much he did not spare his own Son but gave him up for you (Rom 8:32) 
• You are beloved by Jesus who, though he was God, did not count equality with God as something we could grasp but emptied himself and came to serve us all, ultimately giving his life up for us willingly so we could be restored to a right relationship with our Creator (Phil 2:6-8) 
• You are beloved by the Holy Spirit who does not fear the contagion of our sin, but enters our hearts to purify us from all of our uncleanliness (Heb 9:14)

It is out of the abounding, steadfast, never-changing, and powerful love of the triune God that I wish to encourage you through this personal devotional to love in a few different ways over the coming days.

Verse: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets. - Matthew 22:37-40

Love Neighbor: The second of Jesus’ great commandments in Matthew 22:37-39 is a logical connection for a heart that has been loved by God -- to go from loving God to loving neighbor. It’s as simple as this: the heart that loves God overflows with a love for  others.

Who is your neighbor, you might ask? Jesus makes it clear in his parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) that anyone can be our neighbor and yes, our neighbor can even be our enemy. 

In times like these, we are given a profound opportunity to act as a light in darkness and as bringers of hope to the hopeless. What do you have an abundance of that your neighbor needs to survive? Be generous to your neighbors and when they ask you why you are helping them, share the Good News! Share that your God has blessed you in abundance so that you can be a blessing to others. Share that in Jesus, your God has forgiven your sin and freed you to live a new life in the power of the Holy Spirit, which enables you to love all people with God’s love that abides in you. Then be bold to ask, “Would you like to know this God too?”
 
Love your neighbor as yourself by leading them to eternal life in Christ Jesus.

Questions:

1. How do you love yourself? Make a list.
2. Who is your neighbor?
3. Take the list from question 1 and apply it to the people in question 2.
4. Be bold in sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ to the neighbors you listed in question 2.