"House Guest"
"If one of your fellow Israelites falls into poverty and cannot support himself, support him as you would a foreigner or a temporary resident and allow him to live with you. (Leviticus 25:35 NLT)
One of the main themes of Leviticus is holiness. God is holy & he expects his people to be holy like him. In fact, they must be set apart or it may cost them their lives! There is no doubt that Leviticus is full of this message. And this is one of the main themes of Scripture, namely, loving God. Living holy lives comes from the desire to please & love God. We would all agree this is the supreme aim of human life, loving God with all out heart, mind, soul, & strength!
Although this is of supreme importance, I feel like I have missed another strong, if not as prominent theme in the book up until this point in my life. Jesus quotes Leviticus when he tells people in the gospels that the second greatest command is to "Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18)." See, Jesus received this truth from God's Word. In fact, everything Jesus taught was firmly rooted in the written Word.
As important as it is to love God & be holy, it is equally as important to love others. And Leviticus spells out what this love means. If a person is in poverty & cannot provide for themselves, we should invite them to be our house guest. We should help them out until they can get back on their feet. This is what it means to be God's people & love others as ourselves. We are to put ourselves in their place, walk a mile in their shoes, see things from their perspective.
This may be old news to you but for me it's been a fresh perspective on God's Word & it's implications for me. It's not good enough to just love God, have a quiet time, & attend church services. It's not enough to just pray for the needs of people. It's not enough to simply be grieved about the difficulty in the lives of others. We should be grieved, but all of Scripture teaches us that we should also act!
James 1 illustrates this perfectly. "Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you (James 1:27 NLT)."
I used to think that Christianity was just about the last part of that verse, being holy & loving God. I could not imagine a Christianity that commanded the first part, to care for widows & orphans, or to love others.
In fact, loving God & others are really not differing commands but the same command. Consider what 1 John says about this. "If someone says, "I love God," but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don't love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters (1 John 4:20, 21 NLT)."
Loving God will find it's expression in loving others. If we do not love others we show that we do not love God! It's not enough to attend worship while not attending to the needs of others. It's not enough to pray to God for others while refusing to act on their behalf. It's not enough to desire to grow in holiness and have no desire to grow in love toward others. They are one and the same. To love God is to love others and to love others is to love God.
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