LOVING YOUR NEIGHBOUR AN ACT OF WORSHIP
1. Loving our neighbours is necessary for experiencing real (full) life.
Luke 10:26-28, NIV (26) What is written in the Law? he replied. How do you read it? (27) He answered: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind ';and, Love your neighbor as yourself.' (28) You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live.
2. Loving our neighbours is more important than all the sacrifices to God (ie. worship), and so loving our neighbours is a higher expression of worship.
Mark 12:32-33, NIV (32) Well said, teacher, the man replied. You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. (33) To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.
3. Loving our neighbours is necessary for experiencing the Kingdom of God.
Mark 12:33-34, NIV (33) To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. (34) When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God..
4. Loving our brothers is the primary proof (acid test) that we really love God.
1 John 4:20, NIV - If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
5. Loving your neighbour as yourself is a summation of the entire law.
Galatians 5:14, NIV The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself.
6. Loving your neighbour as yourself is a royal law.
James 2:8, NIV - If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing right.
7. Loving your neighbour as yourself is a way of demonstrating that God is the Lord of your life.
Leviticus 19:18, NIV - Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
8. The key is always loving your neighbour is deciding to make a covenant of love with your neighbour, and is a choice of true greatness.
Nehemiah 9:32, NIV Now therefore, O our God, the great, mighty and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love
9. Loving God and loving our brothers are inseparable from each other.
1 John 5:1-2, NIV (1) Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves his child as well. (2) This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
10. Loving others is a reasonable response to God loving us.
1 John 4:11, NIV Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
11. Loving others is a requirement for God to dwell in our midst.
1 John 4:12, NIV - No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
12. Loving others is proof of our salvation.
1 John 4:7-8, NIV (7) Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. (8) Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
13. Love for others must be expressed in actions, not just words.
1 John 3:16-18, NIV (16) This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. (17) If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? (18) Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
14. To not love our brothers, is to remain in death.
1 John 3:14, NIV - We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
15. Our salvation is rightly in question, if we do not love our brothers.
1 John 3:10, NIV - This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
16. Loving others is an act of redemption.
1 Peter 4:8, NIV - Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
17. We must every day humble ask God to teach us how to love others.
1 Thessalonians 4:9, NIV - Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.
18. Love is not static, it must be encouraged to continually grow.
1 Thessalonians 3:12, NIV - May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.
19. Only through loving others can we understand the full mysteries of God.
Colossians 2:2, NIV - My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ.
20. True love is self-sacrificing.
Ephesians 5:2, NIV - and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
Note: All scriptures are taken from the New International Version of the Bible.
David Hibbert - February 2004