Loving Your Neighbor

Love. Love. Love. Love. The gospel is a word is love.  Love thy neighbor as thy brother.  Love. Love. Love.

I grew up singing that song in vacation Bible school.  Sounds easy and when I was young I thought it was.  Love to me was kissing my parents goodnight, getting treats from my Grandfather, sitting on Santa's knee, or being praised for good grades.  What's not to  love?

As an adult, I learned that not everyone loves,  I also learned not everyone is lovable.  That's when the command to love is hard to obey.  Later one I heard someone say, "remember like and love are not the same thing." 

That was freeing.  Jesus never commanded us to like everyone.  But He did mention loving others a lot - a whole lot.  I have spent the last 45 years learning the difference and figuring out how to do it.