Devotion 11.9.20

 "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord." Leviticus 19:17 and 18

God speaking very pre-incarnate Christ-like in this passage from a book of law in the Old Testament. It's an interesting passage that served as the text for the sermon at church Sunday, as Pastor Hiner examined it from the perspective of Christians in community. Just where is that community? may be a fair question. Depending on the platform, the community may be very local and it may be very global.

Think of where we interact with "our neighbor" and there you find a sense of community.  I have friends on Facebook who live in the following places:  Houston, Lubbock, Plainview, Amarillo, Austin, Texas, Minnesota, New York, Mexico, India, Uganda... you get the idea. Some I interact with routinely, almost as much as face-to-face.  These are former students now friends, people I know well from days in Houston and in Lubbock, people I've recently met and people I've never met except on social media. We meet and interact in the coffee houses, the church, schools, the grocery store, at work, over the internet, in writing and digitally.  We have a number of opportunities to impact the lives of many, all of whom are our neighbors.

So, how do we set that tone for interaction? As we look at Leviticus, it states from our heart to our words and actions, and then it ends by stating we are to love our neighbor.  God then signs the command Himself with the famous "I am."  "I am the Lord." It's as though He anticipates our rebellious nature in advance, as though He knows we are going to say, "Just who are you to tell me?" My brother, as you know God, offended me deeply.  My brother, as you have seen, slighted my good name.  My brother, as you have seen, put his nose where it didn't belong.  My brother, as you have heard, ignored me in my time of need.

Here, here is how you behave when it comes to your brother then... and I am the Lord.  

So, we think about how we interact with one another, in person or at a distance via cyberspace.  We think about our hearts and our nature and the impact we really desire to make, in the name of Christ, who died for our sins of the heart, known and unknown, and our sins of action, intentional or omission.  

Pray that we focus on Christ and that we seize opportunities to love on another.