benchmark for love

Mark 12:31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'

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They say that it is good to have a benchmark...a standard...that can be used to measure performance.  In sports there are benchmarks for sprinting, distance running, yards run or passes completed in football, batting averages and earned runs in baseball.  The benchmark informs as to whether performance is fair or excellent (or deep in the 'needs work' department).

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As Christians we are given a benchmark to help us know if we are walking in love toward the people we interact with daily.  From the passage in Mark above we learn that our love for ourselves is that standard.  We all seem to live up to the benchmark of self-love.  Consider this phrase from Ephesians 5:29 "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it".

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The Ephesians passage is wrapped up in a teaching on how husbands should love their wives.  The words immediately following in that verse show that Jesus follows this benchmark: "just as Christ does the church, 30 because we are members of his body."

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We ought to love others just as we love ourselves because Christ loves us as part of His body.

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Now we know that the benchmark for loving others truly is Christ and we are motivated to obey the primary benchmark:

Mark 12:30 "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."

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If we ought to love others as we already love ourselves, we have a standard that we are very familiar with!

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blessings,

Rob Smith

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"Death is inevitable.  Life is a choice!"

John 11:25

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."