"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

To me, faith is important, and loving God is important. But guess what? So is loving other people. These two commandments, as Jesus stated, are the exact and true core of Christianity.

However, I notice that it is easy for some people to forget that second commandment Jesus snuck in there: "Love your neighbor as yourself."

He's not saying "Love the guy who lives right next door to you and treat everyone else like crap."

He's not saying "I'm glad you love God! I now give you permission to treat every one else out there like crap because God likes when you do that!"

He IS saying "Love them and treat them in the way you yourself would like to be treated."

Those of us who spent even 5 minutes in Youth Group or Sunday School will know this as the Golden Rule, something that tends to follow us throughout our lives, something we have the delightful tendency to forget every so often.

To my fellow believers, our commands for life don't just stop at "Love God." I know you've all heard this before, but Jesus set the ultimate example, because he DID love everyone, even those who hated him or ignored him. What's more, he loved the people that others at the time saw fit to ignore and berate (lepers, the blind, the mute, the deaf, beggars, prostitutes, etc).

So think about this..

Have you ever decided "it's okay for me to hate/mistreat that person/those people because I love God?"

If you have, I suggest taking another look at Jesus' commandments.

My apologies that this post isn't terribly eloquent, but I just had a feeling to get it and my sentiments out.

I feel that, far too often, Christians tend to forget the whole "Love your neighbor as yourself" bit. In other words, they become zealots for God, but completely ignore the fact that they're supposed to be living as examples of God's LOVE, not God's JUDGEMENT.

If you see someone engaging in behavior that IS destructive, then it is your job to LOVE that person enough to confront them about it, but in a LOVING manner. This doesn't mean getting the nearest bible and smacking them over the head with it. It means sitting down, forming a relationship with that person, establishing a bond of trust, and speaking to them as a person.

You don't "fix" a person by parroting scripture. You "heal" a person by actually LOVING them and helping them by figuring out HOW to help them. In other words, you heal a person not just by quoting scripture, but LIVING it out in your actions towards others.

/end rant