Love your neighbor as yourself, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your enemies, turn the other cheek. If someone wrongs you forgive them seventy times seven times. Care for the orphan and the widow.
Love requires us to look at other peoples' situations and respond to them as if we are in the same position. When our neighbor has no job or is struggling in some area of their existence we should be as up in arms about it as if it were happening to ourselves or affecting a loved one.
I really love my family, my girlfriend, and my close friends a lot. I realize though that at one point or other in my life I didn't know any of those people at all. Prior to really knowing all of them there was the potential to love or not love any of them. “To know them is to love them” I think about that statement and I think it is completely relevant and at the same time one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. It makes sense because we are all humans and have to exist and interact with each other under certain preconditions. We have sin and stuff so there is the potential to fail miserably at relationships. The “and stuff” that I referred to in the last sentence is weird stuff like self esteem, where you devalue yourself or you esteem yourself way too much and have pride. There are tons of other things that encompass that “and stuff” but all and all human love is conditional so the “know to love” statement speaks to that conditionality directly. It's like saying “because you could potentially hurt me, or because you may potentially make me feel less or more, or you fill in the blank.... I have to asses that all of the conditions that exist between us are compatible in enough areas that I can choose to share this nebulous concept of love with you”. In so many words that is exactly what we do! And by no means am I encouraging anyone to completely disregard friendships or deep relationships based on compatibility but it is dangerous sometimes when that is the only thing that we base love on. I think you'd be shocked and amazed how close you could get with another human being, by establishing a relationship based on your differences, or better yet disregarding conditions all together. The “know to love” statement is ridiculous because in reality to know someone else at the simplest level is to know humanity. We are all made out of the same stuff we all bleed when we are cut, we all hurt when we lose something or someone important to us. So we already know exactly what we need to know about other people in order to sufficiently love them prior to “knowing them”, they are human just like yo are.
God proved to us that the only condition that love should be based upon is the Human Condition. He did so by becoming one. In Jesus' skin God loved and loved and loved people like you and I. Jesus said mourn with people who are mourning because you know it sucks to be alone in sad times. He says feed people who don't have anything to eat because you know what your stomach feels like when you are hungry. The “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” thing isn't just a catchy phrase, it's a way of life that says “I could easily be in the position of the person standing right in front of me because I am just as human as they are, so I will choose to treat them kindly”. LOVE OTHER HUMANS BASED ON THE CONDITION OF THEIR INHERENT HUMANNESS! If a HOLY God can love us then why can't we as unholy humans just love all of the other unholy humans?
(The crumby picture above is of a family in Nicaragua that fed me and let me sleep in their house free of charge for a few days while I was walking around Central America in shorts and a backpack. They fed me Nacatamales and Coca-Cola the father of the family was Giovanni he shared scriptures with me and the mosquitoes at night time. they loved me... and got to know me afterward)
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