CHAPTER 3

Love Everybody, Always

“Love one another.” What is simple often isn’t easy; what

is easy often doesn’t last.

It was a lawyer like me who tried to set up Jesus. This lawyer asked

Jesus what the greatest commandment was. I think he was looking for a
plan, but Jesus told him about his purpose instead. He said it was to love
God with all his heart and soul and mind. Then in the next breath, Jesus
gave the lawyer some unsolicited but practical advice. Jesus told him he
should love his neighbors just like he loved himself. Sometimes we see
these as two separate ideas, but Jesus saw loving God and loving our
neighbors as one inseparable mandate. They were tied for first in Jesus’
mind. I think Jesus said these things because He knew we couldn’t love
God if we don’t love the people He surrounds us with. Simply put, we can
stop waiting for a plan and just go love everybody. There’s no school to
learn how to love your neighbor, just the house next door. No one expects
us to love them flawlessly, but we can love them fearlessly, furiously,
and unreasonably.
We’re not supposed to love only our neighbors, but Jesus thought we
should start with them. I bet He knew if our love isn’t going to work for
the people who live close to us, then it’s probably not going to work for
the rest of the world. Jesus didn’t say who our neighbors are either.
Probably so we wouldn’t start making lists of those we don’t need to
love.
Each of us is surrounded every day by our neighbors. They’re ahead
of us, behind us, on each side of us. They’re every place we go. They’re