‘You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. Leviticus 19:18
The command to love your neighbor as yourself was spoken by our Lord first in the Law as we see in our verse for today. Jesus then spoke it twice in Matthew to make that three times from the Lord. Paul gave it to us again in his letter to the Romans and once more writing to the Galatians, and James gave it to us one more time to make three times for the apostles.
This command from the Lord just might have some bearing on how we are to live, he said with almost biblical understatement.
What about my wife, does she not come first? (I didn't get married last night, bear with me by way of example.)
I know the husbands want to ask that question. As we have said before, the wife is simply your closest neighbor. The children are your next closest and so on until you come to that person who is most distant from you on the earth, and he or she also we are to love as ourselves. Some of us need to work on the first part more - loving those neighbors - and others the second part should be recalled more often. For all of the uses, all six of them, end with 'as yourself'. Yes, we were born sinful creatures, but loving ourselves is part of the divine command too. If you doubt it, remember that the first one is signed: "I am the LORD".
Love to you in Christ our Lord! Bucky
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