Radical Missionality - Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself

“Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 

Maybe you’ve heard or read Penn Jillette’s words about Christians sharing the good news of Jesus. Penn Jillette has a pretty unique perspective on this as an atheist. Take a minute now to play the video.

“How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? “ Maybe like me you have never really thought of it as hate. That description stings.
But isn’t it true?
At the very least it is loving yourself more than loving someone else and that might as well be hate.
If my house was on fire and you were aware and I wasn’t and you didn’t tell me because you were worried that you might not have all of the right answers to my questions or you were afraid that I might be upset that you rang the doorbell and made my dog bark then you really don’t care about me or the danger I am in - you care about you. And how you might be perceived. And that is not anything close to loving me as you love yourself.
If your house was on fire you would want to know.
If there was genuine danger, you would want someone to tell you.

And if I loved you more than I loved what you thought of me, or at least the same as I love me, I would tell you.
Ugh.
I’m stopping here… to repent for my own lack of love.
And to pray that God would help me to love my neighbor more and myself less.

** This is part 3 in a series of blog posts on Radical Missionality.
Click here for Part 1, “What’s Missing is Radical Missionality.”
Click here for Part 2, “Restore to Us Our Joy”