Those Who Annoy

In Luke 10, a lawyer asks Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life.  Jesus's answer is a summary of the Ten Commandments:

You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.  Luke 10:27.

But the lawyer wants to justify himself, so he asks Jesus to clarify, "And who is my neighbor?"

Those two ideas - the command to love others and the desire to justify oneself - they've been on my mind lately.

As people, we annoy each other...a lot.  At least, that's my experience.  

Sometimes I say to myself, "Why is this person doing this?  It's just making life harder for me, for him, for everyone."
  

When another person is at fault and annoying me, I start to vent.  I justify to myself that, in this circumstance, it's okay to express hate for my neighbor, my fellow Christian, even my family member.


Then it happens.  Either through God's Word or with the help of a Christian brother, I realize what I'm doing, and I'm convicted of my sin.

At first, I feel relief in knowing and facing my sin.

Then, I remember the cross, and I'm grateful that my sins are forgiven.

Finally, my own sinfulness gives me a new love for my neighbor.

Confession, the cross, forgiveness, and love.

But this "loving your neighbor" - it's not easy to continue to love an annoying "neighbor" or to remember to do so.

The apostle John always convicts me:

If anyone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  1 John 4:20

How can I love God, whom I can't see, if I don't love my fellow man, who is sinful and in need, just like me?

And whomever God puts in my life, even and especially an annoying person - that person is the neighbor, or the brother, whom I'm commanded to love and to serve.   

I realize - I can't do it.  No matter how hard I try, sooner or later, most likely sooner, I'm going to fail.   

But Jesus could and did love in this manner.  

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. John 3:17

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.                    1 John 4:10

Jesus came, not to condemn, but to show us His love, and to live and die for us.  

Loving one another, loving my neighbor, my brother - it's only possible when I face my own sin and know God's love and His forgiveness for me.

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.  1 Thessalonians 5:11

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.  Ephesians 4:32