To love God is to mimic Jesus

Article for July 13, 2025

Luke 10:25-28 25Behold, a lawyer stood up to put [Jesus] to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” 26He said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?” 27And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” 28And he said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.”

We the righteous know how to answer correctly, but in our self-righteousness, we do not carry out the righteous task God has put before us.  In, Leviticus 19:9–18, it reads like a list of commandments not that they are the Ten, but that they are contained in the meaning of the Ten.  Everything it says makes sense, and we know we should obey these commands as they really reflect two things.  Leviticus 19:9–18, reflects the law, that is the Ten Commandments.  They also reflect the greatest commands which are to love God and to love our neighbor.

Lawyers certainly know how to say the right words, but they also know how to bend the truth.  The Ten Commandments are law, but they are also a means to love God and one’s neighbor.  And the greatest commands that Jesus gave us could be taken as law, but they are better understood under the auspice of gospel.

To love God is to mimic Jesus in that He is a Savior of forgiveness, a God of grace, and a God of mercy.  We, as Jesus says should do these teachings and know that we will live.  Not that we live this physical life, but that we live a spiritual life with a new body.  In other words, just don’t know the answer, live the answer.

Luke 10:29–31 29But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31Now by chance a priest [and a Levite] was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

Ahh the righteous.  Leaning heavily on the law at the time Jesus walked with man, the Jewish people favored to be clean when they went to worship.  Not that they would be dirty physically, but unclean ceremonially.  The priest and the Levite new if they touched the person bleeding on the side of the road it would make them ceremonially unclean.  This is certainly a good justification in their mind for them not to help this poor sole bleeding on the side of the road.

This is us in that many times we justify ourselves out of doing the right thing.  A beggar on the side of the road, we justify that he should get a job.  And rightly so this person might be able to get a job, but do you know this person’s situation?  A person who is looking for a job, but they just got out of prison.  Do you want to enable them to be a beggar and go back to their life of crime?  Or do you want to enable them to get a second or third or fourth chance? 

If you saw a person bleeding on the side of the road, would you scurry by quickly hoping the person did not see you.  Or would you find some way of helping this person.  We have many means to help one another in our lives today.  Who knows when one entertains an angel.

Luke 10:33–35 33But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’

Maybe we are afraid because of AIDS, or other contractible diseases.  Understood, but again in this day and age we can call 911, get help, and even get instructions on what to do until help comes.  We can also get help as what to do to keep oneself safe from any contagious germs or diseases.

This Samaritan did not consider the law before he helped the person on the side of the road.  This non-Jew did not worry about being ceremonially unclean.  This Samaritan went way out of his way to care for this injured man including putting him up in a room of the nearest inn.  The lesson here is that it does not take a Christian or a Jew to do good deeds. 

However, when a Jew or a Christian does a good deed in the name of the Lord, (the will of the Lord), it sings praises and glory to our God.  Let us be spiritually clean rather than ceremonially clean.  Remember Jesus sacrificed much for us, and God will know when we sacrifice to show our love to our neighbor.

Luke 10:36–37 36Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

Indeed, we like the lawyer, would see that the non-Jew was a neighbor helping a neighbor with care and showing love to this man who was left to bleed.  Jesus went out of His way for us, in fact, Jesus went as far as to die for our sins. 

Jesus took the punishment for our sins that we deserve, and He did it out of love for His neighbor, that is you and me.  Jesus suffered for awhile as we might suffer for a while, and like Jesus we to will be resurrected into a new life where we will see and feel the love our God and even the love of our neighbor.  Amen.

Colossians 1:13–14 13He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Written by Pastor Curtis A. May