How to Love Your Neighbor
7 Extortion turns wise people into fools,
and bribes corrupt the heart.
8 Finishing is better than starting.
Patience is better than pride.
9 Control your temper,
for anger labels you a fool.
Ecclesiastes 7:7-9
Here’s another word for it: blackmail. Call it fool’s potion.
Want a degraded corrupted heart? Become a “buy off” specialist.
No, you say? Not interested in either. Give God thanks.
Next, is finishing truly better than starting? Completion pleases God.
Why is patience better than pride? Because pride produces impatience.
Two more, anger and control. Anger grows foolishness. Control, wisdom.
Three verses. Three maps for life. Preventing sorrow and heartache.
Consider these God’s counsel. Will we listen to Creator wisdom?
These three, teaching us to love our neighbor as ourselves.
There’s no success in us.
There is victory in Jesus.
How might we truly love our neighbor as we love self? The victory over selfishness, pride, ego, envy and anger-things that keep us from loving others-is found in Jesus. This passage explain it well:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
It may be hard to understand-but only Jesus can make a selfish human a NEW creation able to love others.