When we take the command to love our neighbors literally and seriously our motives matter. We don’t love our neighbors to convert them. We love our neighbors because we are already converted.

In many ways, neighboring can be scary. Will they like me? Will they like me too much? Will they want to borrow my stuff. What if we get into a disagreement, will they talk behind my back? Will I talk behind their back? Jesus never let the fear of what might happen to him if he faced his neighbors; the people other people would not hang around with. Again, Jesus shows us how to love our neighbors even when it’s scary.

In order to take The Great Commandment seriously, we must create space in our lives to build relationships with those who live near us. The greatest thread to loving our neighbors is time. This week we look at the life of Jesus (who gave us this command) to see if we can learn how He broke through the time barrier.

Jesus gave us the great commandment. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. The power and genius of The Great Commandment is that it’s so simple and yet extremely powerful when acted on. The smartest thing that we can do collectively to impact our city is to actually live out Jesus’ command to love our neighbors.

Preacher Mark Borgetti (Joy! Lead Pastor) reflects on a song that has meaning to him called Dive.