Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Today’s Daily Bible Reading is from Mark 12:29-33. The Scriptures we are looking at in this lesson concern loving your neighbor as yourself. Who is your neighbor?

According to Christ, a neighbor is any other person regardless of nationality or religion, with whom we live, or meet by chance. It is not only the person who lives next door to us. Basically, our neighbors are everybody with whom we have contact.

In Mark 12 Jesus says the first commandment is to love the Lord thy God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. The second commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Then He says there is no other commandment greater than these two.

Daily Bible Reading:

Mark 12:29-33

29 And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord:

30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

32 And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou hast said the truth: for there is one God; and there is none other but he:

33 And to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.

Let’s take a look at some more Scriptures and see what they say about how we should treat our neighbor.

Leviticus 19:18 tells us not to bear a grudge against our neighbor. “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the LORD.”

Zechariah 8:17 tells us not to not to have evil or untrue thoughts in our hearts against our neighbor. In this Scripture, the Lord says he hates these things. “And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.”

Romans 13:10 tells us love causes no wrong to his neighbor. “Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

James 2:8 tells us that if we fulfill this law to love our neighbor as we love our self, we do well. “If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:”

Even though we no longer live under the Old Testament Law, because Jesus died for our sins on the cross, we still can’t do as we please.

God expects us to treat one another with respect and to be good to one another. As we look at these Scriptures in the Bible reminding us to love our neighbor as we love our self, think about how you love yourself, take care of yourself, and cause no harm to yourself.

 

Things to think about:

• Who is your neighbor?

• How can we love others as we love ourselves?

• What are some things we can do to show love to others?

• Let’s pray and ask God to help us be more loving toward other people.

 

Prayer of the Day:

Dear God,

As we read these Scriptures telling us to love our neighbors as ourselves, we have to stop and think about how You would have us to treat other people. Help us not to do any evil against anyone else. Help us treat other people as we would want to be treated. Help us to treat each other with love and respect. Help us not to mistreat anyone because of their differences in race or because they have different beliefs than we do. In Jesus’ name, we pray. We love You, LORD. Amen.

 

Daily Bible Verse:

thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

– Mark 12:31

–Excerpt from God Is Love ~ Deborah H. Bateman

 

Christian Music Video: Love God, Love Your Neighbor

PS. Thank you for coming to DeborahHBateman.com to study the Bible with us. Please come back again tomorrow and invite your friends and family to join us for Bible Study.

 

Featured Book:

God Is Love

by Deborah H. Bateman

About the book:

God is Love is a Daily Bible Reading Study by Deborah H. Bateman. It contains 19 daily devotionals on Scriptures about love from the Bible: including God’s love for us, the love relationship between a husband and wife, love and honoring our parents, and much more.

This devotional would be great for either a personal daily devotions or group Bible studies, including small groups, and Sunday school classes. Each devotional contains a brief commentary by the author, the daily Bible Scripture, a prayer of the day, and several questions for personal reflection or group discussion.

In God is Love, Deborah strives to show you not only what love is, but that love comes from God, as well as the love of God surpasses all imagination. Her goal for you as you read this book is that you would realize how much God loves you.

Benefits of reading God is Love
• You will learn what love is
• You will learn about different kinds of love
• You will learn how much God loves you
• You will learn of the sacrifice made by God because of His love for you

Available on Amazon

Get your copy now!

 

Have a blessed day,

Deborah

Recipe for Life

Like Deborah H. Bateman on Facebook