9th June 2006

Loving the Other
By John Fischer

There is one thing, among many, that we share as human beings. We are all selfish. It’s built into our DNA. Not that this is all bad. In fact the one commandment that Jesus said that summed up everything God expects of us relies on our being this way. Jesus said we were to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. So self-love is assumed. It’s interesting to me that Jesus doesn’t tell us to stop being selfish; he tells us how to turn our preoccupation with self into something that will take us beyond ourselves.

We all care for ourselves and look after our own needs. We’re all number one in our own book. Jesus was counting on this when he told us how to love. He said to love others the way you love yourself. Look after someone else’s needs the way you look after your own. If you want to find out how to love someone, observe how you treat yourself, and then do that for someone else.

This shouldn’t be too hard to figure out. If you want people to listen to you, listen to them. If you want people to applaud you, applaud them. If you want to be recognized, recognize someone. If you want people to take you seriously, take them seriously. If you’re getting hungry, then you can assume that others around you are probably hungry too. How else did Jesus know to take care of feeding the crowd he had been speaking to all day except that he was hungry himself? You could go as far as to say that this is precisely why we have needs, so we can understand and deal with the needs of those around us.

Noticing others by all the attention we pay ourselves, is a way of using our natural born instincts for something better. This is one of the great things about fellowship. If everyone is concerned about everyone else, everyone gets taken care of without having to focus on ourselves. We all take care of each other taking extra care to make sure no one is left out.

Think about this as you go through this day—that your own needs are more than likely an indication of the needs of those around you, and try satisfying your need by meeting theirs.