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Love Your Neighbor

January 1, 2014 cm-admin Inspire 0

1 Jan 2014 by Mindy Oon CM –

For the past few months, Infuse Youth (FGA Ipoh) have been learning the fundamentals of how to ‘Love Your Neighbor’. Whether it is to say a simple ‘thank you’ or ‘I’m sorry’; to send someone a get well card; or to help out a friend, teacher or parent, the young people were encouraged to show love to the people around them. Below is Natasha’s testimony about how a simple gesture can touch a person:

I teach in a school with different diversity and beliefs of children. One day, one of my pupils was feeling quite down in class. When I asked him what was going on, he simply replied that he missed his home. Home here does not mean his house but his homeland. He came to Malaysia with his family last year from Europe and missed his friends.

I understood how he felt because I too sometimes miss home and my home is only Kuala Lumpur. In quietness of my heart while teaching, I asked God, what I could do to make him feel happy. And I heard the answer. Bless this boy. Have lunch with him in the canteen.

I followed him to the canteen and decided to just buy him lunch because he mentioned that he was not having lunch because he left his pocket money at home. He was smiling from ear to ear when I told him I would buy him lunch.

We took a spot in the canteen table with the rest of the class. Before eating, he asked me if I said grace before I eat. He then asked if it was ok if he said grace before having lunch today when I told him I always said grace before I had my meals. He said a beautiful prayer and we continued eating our meal.

After having that meal, he told me that he had not said any prayers before and was never taught to say one as well. However, he said that today he had the urge to pray before the meal. I just smiled widely and told him, that's a good start and followed by this “Remember, prayer is conversation with God. When you miss home, talk to God. He knows how you feel and just ask Him for peace of mind and guidance. When I miss my family, I tell Him and I ask Him to be with me when I am feeling lonely.”

He was happy and there was no sign of glumness in him anymore. I could see that he was no longer down and was back to his normal cheerful self.

Natasha Liew Vellkumar

John 13:35 says ‘By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another’ and Matthew 5:44-45 says ‘But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven’.

We live in a world in which people are desperate to be loved. However instead of loving the people around us, many people seem to ‘love things and use people’ while it should be the other way round. The Bible commands us to love one another. Mark 12:30-31 says ‘And you shall love the LORD your God will all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and will all your strength. This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. It is the most important commandment in the Bible. But ‘love’ is a word that many do not understand. We want people to love us, to approve of us. But it is only when we have experienced God’s love and realize how much He loves us that we can truly love the way in which He wants us too.

Loving the way God loves means we’re willing to love others even when there’s nothing in it for us. God’s love can soften people’s hearts, and can be seen, displayed through loving actions that can be seen and felt by others. Sometimes it takes an effort, and sometimes we have to swallow our pride to do what God asks us to do. In 2 Timothy 3:1-3, the Bible says that in the last days, men will be lovers of themselves, and that they will be unforgiving and unloving. Therefore, as children of God, let us make it intentional to love the people around us.