Which of these did Jesus say?

1. Love one another.
2. Love your family.
3. Love your friends.
4. Love the stranger.
5. Love the weak.
6. Love the strong.
7. Love the poor.
8. Love the rich.
9. Love your neighbor.
10. Love your enemy.
11. Love the people.
12. Love your boss.
13. Love your co-workers.
14. Love your city.
15. Love the people who cross your path.

If you answered 1, 9, and 10, you know your Bible.   But if you know that Jesus meant all ten (and then some), you know your Lord.

And some things to think about.

1. Love always takes initiative.  Don’t be passive.
2. There’s only so much of you to go around, so you can’t actively love everyone.
3. Start with the people around you because God put you there.

Our Wednesday night huddle is working through (slowly) a book called The Art of Neighboring by Jay Pathak and Dave Runyon.   It is a straightforward book about making an intentional commitment to keep the command to love our neighbors – our literal neighbors.  It is helping us also to seek persons of peace.  They may be, literally, closer than we think.

More to the point though, if we were to do this simple-difficult thing that Jesus told us to do – if we were to love our neighbors – it will make a huge difference in the world.  It would go along way toward giving us Jesus followers some credibility.  And we’d probably find life!