• Matthew 22:39 “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
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The lost do not know much of God nor His Word, but they do know the phrase “love your neighbor” paraphrased from God’s Word. And oh how the lost like to misuse that verse! Unbelievers have no interest in truly loving their neighbor nor loving their God for that matter. They quote it to you, though, to push you to do what they want, not what God wants. “Close your church for weeks/months in times of disease to ‘love your neighbor’.” “Wear restrictive masks permanently on your face to ‘love your neighbor’.” “Willingly remove all of your freedoms in order to ‘love your neighbor’.” “Justify the murder of babies and of euthanasia because you must ‘love your neighbor’.” “Accept sodomy and gender insanity, and use my preferred pronouns to “love your neighbor’.” Sadly and shockingly, many believers fall for this deception, because you don’t want to be “unloving.”

Before you continue down the world’s spiraling destructive path for the sake of “loving your neighbor,” you need to notice some very important truths about “loving your neighbor”:

#1 – The command “Love your neighbor” needs specifics. It is not explicit. Alone it lacks necessary details, clarification, directions, and definition.

#2 – The command “Love God” comes first. Loving God takes precedence over “love your neighbor”.

• Mt. 22:37 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
• 38 This is the first and great commandment.”
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If “loving your neighbor” (2nd commandment) is a reason given to make you disobey loving God (1st commandment), do not submit. Loving God is first and foremost (Mt. 6:33 “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness…”). As a matter of fact, you can never truly love your neighbor until you first truly love your God.

#3 – Since “all the law and the prophets” hang on loving God and loving others, you must obey “all the law and the prophets” to love both correctly.

• Mt. 22:40 “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”
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• Jn. 14:15 “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
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That is another reason why we have an entire Bible telling us how to live our lives and not just two verses telling us to love God and to love others! We need the whole Bible, “all the law and the prophets,” to correctly discern how to love God and to love our neighbor.

Imagine you have two chore lists in your family. (This is a great family tool idea for you, too!) You have a chore list that looks like a house and you have a chore list that looks like, in our family’s case, a van. (In elementary, my teacher had something similar that looked like a school building.) Underneath the house and the van are hooks with tags on them. Each tag lists one specific chore to do. Each child or family member can take one tag, and the chore on that tag is what that child can do. Each tag does not clean the house and van entirely, but each tag is needed to fulfill the overall purpose of cleaning the house and the van.

Each law in “all the law and the prophets” is one of those tags attached to the first and second commandments (the house and van). Alone the laws don’t exactly fulfill loving God and loving your neighbor, but each law is needed to fulfill the overall commands of loving God and loving others.

Each of the statements at the beginning of this article used by the wicked to demand you “love your neighbor” should all be contrasted to God’s entire Word.

• – For instance, the demand to use preferred pronouns should be contrasted to the fact that the God Who knows all time and all things purposely never uses opposing pronouns in His Word. God’s Word only uses male and female pronouns for male and female people because “male and female created He them.” (Gen. 1:27, 5:2; Mt. 19:4; Mk. 10:6) God’s Word is against sodomy (Gen. 19; Rom. 1) and the “effeminate” (I Cor. 6:9). God warns that answering a fool according to their folly (i.e. using their pronouns of “cat” or “unicorn”) might damage their conceit, but it will eventually cause you to be “like unto him.” (Pro. 26:4-5 – A major reason why each generation becomes more wicked and accepting of sin.)
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• – The demand to close our churches in order to “love your neighbor” should be compared to God’s command to assemble (Heb. 10:25 – See “You Need to Go to Church” series).
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• – The demand to kill our unborn babies in order to “love your neighbor”… actually clearly ignores the baby. The baby is also “your neighbor.” God most assuredly reveals throughout His Word that babies are real human beings with a soul (Jer. 1:5; Ps. 139:16; Is. 49:1, 5) that will live forever with Him in glory when they die (II Sam. 12:22-23).
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• – The demand for face masks that you may “love your neighbor” was already quantified so long ago by God in Lev. 13:45 (See 3-part series “Medical Face Masks”).
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#4 – Realize that you ARE “loving your neighbor” when you stand for truth! (Truth is God’s Word [Jn. 17:17] which is often opposed by modern science and modern medicine. Why do so many “Christian” leaders and laymen place more importance on “the science” than on the constant truth of God’s Word?)

• Jn. 15:10 “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”
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#5 – Believers shouldn’t allow a lost soul who willfully rejects the truth of God to define what “loving your neighbor” is and what you as a Christian must do. Remember:

• I Cor. 2:14 “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
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The lost cannot “know” nor discern God’s spiritual truths including “love thy neighbor.” Truly loving your neighbor is a truth “of the Spirit of God” that “the natural man” cannot receive. In reality, the lost aren’t really concerned about loving their neighbor. The Bible says that it is “foolishness unto him.” That is like a filthy, lost boyfriend pushing a girl into fornication and saying she doesn’t “love” him if she doesn’t commit the sin.

#6 – The vast storehouse of God’s Word reveals “loving your neighbor” is speaking truth to your neighbor.

• Zechariah 8:16 “These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates:”
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• II Corinthians 4:2 “But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.” (You neighbor’s “conscience” needs “the manifestation of truth” with “the word of God” not handled deceitfully nor dishonestly.)
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• Ephesians 4:25 “Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another.”
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• Colossians 3:9 “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;”
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• James 3:14 “… glory not, and lie not against the truth.”
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True love “rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.” (I Cor. 13:6 ) Believers do not “pat themselves on the back” for lying to “their neighbor” “against the truth” by using false pronouns they know do not exist. The godly glory and rejoice that they stood and spoke the truth in love to “their neighbor.”

In conclusion, if others demand you “love your neighbor” (2nd commandment) make sure to check “all the law and the prophets” to make sure that what is demanded doesn’t contradict loving and obeying God (1st commandment).