Love is the Hardest Commandment
This article talks about:
- The Challenge of True Love
- Love and Emotional Baggage
- Biblical Love in Action
-By Moshe DaCosta-
This month’s issue is one of the most important issues ever produced by Netivyah. I mean that not because we haven’t addressed important issues in the past—we certainly have—but because "love" is the main difference between followers of Yeshua and other expressions of faith. And it is the difference not because we consider ourselves the only people capable of love; that wouldn’t be true, but because love according to the God of the Bible is often expressed in a unique and unexpected way.
Our Messiah and Rabbi established (Matt. 22:36–40) that our love for the Creator and towards other human beings is the foundation upon which our faith should be based. In this edition, we’re addressing one of these two important pillars, the famous "love thy neighbor" commandment, and as I write these words, I pray that my fellow collaborators in this month’s edition succeed in covering, through their respective articles, all the aspects of such an amazing mitzvah. I also pray that through reading this magazine, you will not only understand the Jewish viewpoint of loving others but also find practical ways to obey this uniquely difficult commandment.
I’m not sure if you’ll agree with me, but I think love is usually taken for granted among believers in our congregations. If we ask people who consider themselves Christians, most will obviously agree that love is an important concept. They will quote that God is love (1 John 4:8) and probably have a positive opinion of themselves and of their churches on this issue. Almost all of them will say that they practice this commandment, but I don’t have the same confidence; to my sadness, I believe the exact opposite. Yeshua emphasized these two pillars of our faith mentioned above precisely because He knew how hard it is for human beings to express real love. When questioned about it, He mentioned that true love should be the intrinsic ingredient of our expression as His disciples.
Without love, our attempts to perform in a "Christian" way would be merely superficial expressions of religion and a human desire to fit within a community. It would never be a fulfillment of the perfect instructions established in the Scriptures. As an experienced believer, I’ve witnessed several brothers and sisters who honestly wanted to feel included and be part of a believing community. In order to successfully integrate themselves into a religious framework, these brethren usually learn how to mimic certain behaviors, simulate certain emotions, and answer with the right phrases and intonations. Please notice that I don’t consider this a bad thing; we need these tools to survive human society, but within a religious community, the "language" people learn and force themselves to speak often develops into a stumbling block for a true believer, masking problems and preventing growth.
We need to consider that when our brothers and sisters arrive in our midst, they usually carry loads of emotional baggage. People join us full of trauma, family issues, failed relationships, and unhealed scars from past disappointments or mistakes. Although salvation has an effective healing aspect, it usually takes time and a lot of conscious effort to actually start to affect the believer. People use masks in their secular relationships, and when those masks are used within our churches or congregations, they hide true feelings, making it difficult to be noticed by more mature brothers in faith and making it harder for them to help. That’s the main reason we get surprised when someone we've known for years suddenly leaves our congregations due to some issue or when we hear about known Christian families being destroyed by divorce without any previous notice or warning signs. All the problems were hidden under the cover of good manners and pious behavior.
You must be asking yourself: But what is the connection between these issues and the subject of expressing our love to the people that surround us? First, how can we love, and I mean truly love someone, if we don’t know what biblical love is? Next, how can we express godly love if our bodies and souls are contaminated with sin and emotional baggage? And finally, if we’re not properly taught about biblical love in our congregations and cannot express it due to our limitations, how can we say that we’re truly Yeshua’s disciples?
The last question is probably the easiest to answer, I suppose. Being considered His disciple will never depend on our merit. The Scriptures say that God chose us. He enabled us to believe in Him, and He ultimately saved us through Yeshua. The whole concept of salvation by faith alone affirms that because we’ll never completely fulfill our side of the covenant by obeying Him in all His commandments, Yeshua had to do it in our place, and by His merit, God will perfectly fulfill His side of the contract. So, yes, although we’re not perfect and never will be, due to unmerited Grace and immense Mercy, we can say that if we truly put our faith in Yeshua, we’re His disciples. It's as simple as that, and if we’re His disciples, we must be able to love.
Expressing real love is extremely difficult, and prior to salvation, mankind lacks the necessary spiritual and emotional tools to do it. For an unredeemed person, it is impossible to love. There are many different ways to express love, and all of them need the Holy Spirit to do it properly and according to the Scriptures. One can express love through words, specific actions, and even thoughts, but in order to do it in alignment with God’s Word, we need the assistance of the Ruach haKodesh. The Holy Spirit is the only One Who truly understands His Word, and only with His help can one express love to family, friends, and neighbors. And we’re expected to do much more than this; we need to love even our enemies.
But what is love, my friends? This is probably the most important question we need answered, especially in a world that is often full of hatred and division. Biblical love is a subject much deeper than feeling good or doing nice things for others. Real love is about putting the needs of others before our own. It is about sacrificing our own comfort and convenience for the sake of others. It is about forgiving those who have wronged us. And that’s what makes it almost impossible, since real love is always expressed through talking the hard way and making unpleasant choices. Loving someone who treats you right is easy, but it is difficult to love someone who is unlovable. It’s difficult to love someone who hurts you.
Yeshua told us that true love demands laying down our lives if necessary. He loved us when we were sinners. He loved us even when we didn’t deserve it. He put the needs of others before His own. He forgave those who had wronged Him. He truly loved His enemies.
Why could expressing love be the hardest commandment listed in the Bible?
Firstly, love is a verb. It is not something that we simply feel; it is something that we do. Secondly, biblical love is often inconvenient to us. It often requires us to go out of our way to help others or to speak the truth in order to confront people with their situation. It can cost us our time, our money, our comfort, and our friends and family. Love can be risky. When we decide to love others, we open ourselves up to the possibility of being hurt. We may be rejected, or we may be taken advantage of.
As Christians, our inability to love others will probably have a negative impact on our relationships. Even Christians sometimes become resentful, angry, or, God forbid, hateful. That’s because we don’t really love people, and this can lead to conflict and division among believers who are supposed to behave like brothers and sisters.
In the book of 1 John, we are told that "if anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" (1 John 4:20). What this verse actually teaches us is that our love for God is exponentially reflected in our love for others. When we fail to love others, we are completely failing to love our Creator.
No teaching would be complete without some directions on how to fight our normal human limitations. So how can we overcome the challenges of expressing love? Here are some final thoughts that may help some of you as much as they helped me:
- Start by loving and accepting yourself. As taught in the Scriptures, we should love others as ourselves, but many don’t. How can we love others if we do not love ourselves? Forgive yourself, incentivize yourself, and accept that you’ll never be perfect, nor are you expected to be. When we love ourselves, it becomes easier to love others.
- Practice forgiveness. I mentioned that you should forgive yourself first, but remember to forgive others. Anger and resentment prevent us from expressing true love toward others. When we forgive those who have hurt us, we free ourselves to love them unconditionally.
- Put others before yourself. It’s hard for some to understand this, but the Kingdom of God is not about you and how you feel; it’s about Yeshua and the Father’s plans for mankind. Human beings are self-centered, egotistical beings, and biblical love is about altruism, putting the needs of others before our own. It’s about sacrifice; it will cost you things you like.
- Be patient and know that love and kindness won’t probably be returned. Love is a journey, not a destination. It’s a way of seeing life. Besides, it takes time and effort to learn how to love others perfectly; the more you love, the more selfless you’ll be. Be patient with yourself and with others, and don’t give up.
- Read your Bible. These two practices are paramount to Yeshua’s disciples. That’s how we immerse ourselves in the Spirit and connect ourselves with the source of all Love. How can we understand love if we don’t talk with and listen to the only One who really loves us perfectly?
When we love others, we are following God’s instructions and Yeshua’s example. We are practicing something that in Hebrew is called Tikkun Olam, which means "fixing the world", making the world a better place.
Romans 3:23 says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." This verse shows that we are all sinners, and our sin separates us from God.
1 John 4:19 says, "We love because he first loved us." Our love for God is a response to his love for us. We cannot love God on our own, but only because he first loved us.
1 Corinthians 13:4–7 lists some characteristics of divine love. These include patience, kindness, humility, and self-control. These are all qualities that are difficult for humans to exhibit in a consistent way; only the Spirit can help us on this issue.
In the book of Hosea, God compares his love for Israel to the love of a husband for his unfaithful wife. It looks obvious to some, but this comparison shows God’s love as being forgiving, even when we are not. And that’s usually our situation. Again, it shows why love for others is a difficult task to pursue since it requires us to love people who may be very different from us and who may do things that we find offensive. Human love is imperfect, and we will never fully express divine love on our own. However, God’s love is perfect, and he wants us to love others in the same way.
God’s love is based on compassion and empathy. If Tikkun Olam is the idea of repairing the world, this can be done only through acts of kindness and compassion. It's not just about wishing people well and supporting them; it’s about taking action to make things better for them. "Love thy neighbor" is not just about feeling compassion for others; it’s about doing something to really help them. And the first thing people need most is to hear the truth about Yeshua, our Messiah. That’s a priority; keep that in mind.
God’s true love is also about hope. If we really believe we can make the world a better place, we also conclude that we can make a difference in the lives of others. We are tools in the hands of our creator, through which He molds the world according to His plans. That’s one of the good parts of our calling as disciples—the belief that we can somehow make a difference in the world by being partners of a deity so much higher than us yet a God who "raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy out of the ash, that He may seat with him with princes, yes, with princes of His people" (Psalm 113).
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Moshe is a husband, father, and servant at the Roeh Israel congregation. He has a background in Business Consulting and Advertising, but always longed for the Ministry. As a Messianic Jew, he developed interests connected to Jewish traditions and with time became a Hazan (liturgical cantor), a Sofer STaM (trained scribe), and a certified Mohel (circumciser). He has been serving the messianic community for 11 years in Israel and has joined Netivyah´s team with a desire to build ways of communication and mutual support between observant and non-observant believers in Israel.