Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

by Bryan Kemper

Mark 12:30: “and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength. 31 The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."

Is your neighbor just the person who lives next door to you or the person that lives across the street?

In Luke 10, a lawyer asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?”

Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus explained that a Levite and a Priest traveling down a road both saw a man in need in a ditch and just passed him up, not offering any help. Then a Samaritan saw him and helped him. The Samaritan loved his neighbor as himself.

Who is our neighbor? I would say anyone in our path that is in need is our neighbor. If we see a homeless man and we give him food, we are loving our neighbor, even if this man does not live next door to us, he is our neighbor.

So let us ask ourselves how we would want someone to love us if we were in danger. If our life was in danger and our neighbor knew about it, would we not want them to help us? Would we expect someone to speak up for us if we were sentenced to death unjustly? That would be expecting others to live by this command to love their neighbor as themselves.

I have heard that verse thousands of times in my life, taught in church and at youth groups and many places. It seems to be a favorite verse to be used by so many to teach us how we should treat others, and I agree it is a great teaching verse.

I would say, however, that for the most part the Christian church had ignored this verse when it comes to children in the womb unjustly sentenced to death by abortion. It is so easy to get people to volunteer for things like feeding the homeless or donating to causes like this. But when I talk about standing up for our neighbor in the womb, the comment I get so often is “I am not called to that”. I wonder, did the Good Samaritan stop and ask God if he was “called to a ditch ministry”? Does this verse say love your neighbor if you are called to that particular need?

Every day in this country over 4,400 of our neighbors face a horrific and unjust death sentence. Every day over 4,400 of our neighbors are lying in a ditch so to speak and have no one to stop and help them, or do they? I say they do have some one to stop and help them; it is just that we do not stop.

Is there an abortion mill close to you? Do you maybe pass one on your way to work every day? Do you ever stop to think what is really going on in that building? Does it register with you that inside that building your neighbor is about to brutally butchered? For the most part we do not want to think about this because it makes us sick. We would never want to actually see the results of what goes on in that building because it is too disturbing or gross. Do we just pass by thinking “what a shame”?

What if it was you in that building and some man or woman was about to tear you limb from limb? What if your neighbors were passing by and knew what was going on, yet just passed on by because they were too busy, or did not want to think about what was going to happen to you? That seems ridiculous to think about. Or what if it was a daycare center and we saw a man walking in with a butcher knife; could actually see him walking towards the kids on the playground? I would bet money that you would stop and do whatever you could to prevent him from reaching those little innocent children.

Unfortunately, the children entering into the abortion mill are not seen and we don’t get that emotional bond that we would if we saw them playing on a playground. The fact is that abortion has become so political that we are clouded as to what is really going on in that building. If we truly saw it for what it actually is, I do not believe that it would still be legal 30 years after Roe vs. Wade.

So I ask you, who is your neighbor? Are you willing to love your neighbor as yourself? Are you willing to live by what Christ taught us in this parable?

There are so many ways to love our neighbor and be a voice for those who do not have one. Here are a few suggestions on how you can love you neighbor.

Adopt an abortion mill to pray for. Go to www.standtrue.com and click on the Prayer for Abortion Provider Project and follow the steps.

1.     Adopt an abortion mill to pray for. Go to www.standtrue.com and click on the Prayer for Abortion Provider Project and follow the steps. 

2.     Volunteer at a local Crisis Pregnancy Center. 

3.     Sidewalk counsel and pray at your local abortion mill. 

4.     Have a pro-life rally in your area to get people involved.  

5.     Organize a baby items drive at your church for your local crisis pregnancy center.  

6.     Start a Stand True chapter in your area and spread the pro-life message. 

7.     Distribute pro-life literature and educate your friends. 

8.     Get educated on all pro-life issues so you can take a strong stand. 

9.     Cyber-activism, spread the message on the internet through chat rooms, message boards, e-mail forwards... You can use anything from the Stand True website or e-mails to get the message out. 

10.  Donate to a pro-life organization to help them       continue their work. A donation of any size will help them.

It does not matter which of these you choose to do or if you choose to stand up in another way, as long as you stand up. Today 4,400 of our neighbors are going to die a tragic death, let’s love them as ourselves.