I was led to a passage in Leviticus this morning titled, “Love Your Neighbor as Yourself”. Verse 17 of chapter 19 was the verse that led me here as I continue my study of the word “heart”.
“17You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him.” – Leviticus 19:17 (ESV)
This verse by itself does not speak of love directly. In fact, in the complete passage, including the title, the word love is only used twice. But the concept of love is fully given. Not in the common emotional sense, but in the action sense and that can be seen in the verse above.
Love is often considered soft and fluffy. It is this vision of the caring mother, the doting spouse, the affectionate parent, or the giving neighbor. Where this is love in action, it is also action of love to be frank with others and holding others accountable and not doing doing things that cause others to find grief or hardship and provide some relief.
The verse above tells us to not have hate in our heart. How do we do that, well, we fill our heart with love actions. Author and speaker Jon Gordon writes in his book “The Positive Dog”, “you can’t be stressed and thankful at the same time”a. Where this quote is not specific to love, it does speak to the idea that your heart cannot be full of hate if it is full of love. It is in love that we take action.
Love begins with God and when He fills our heart, we have no room for hate. With God in our heart, we will emit it all around us. No, it will not always be seen as the caring mother, the doting spouse, the affectionate parent, or the giving neighbor. But it will always be to not cause others to find grief or hardship and provide some relief. It all starts with that love from the heart.
What is your view of love and where it comes from? Are you stuck on the emotional side of love? What if you were to fill you heart with God, who is love, and leave no room for hate so that you can bring love to others from your heart?
aGordon, Jon. The Positive Dog. John Wiley & Sons, 2012, p. 18.
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