Daily Encouragement: Day 287

Adapted from Handbook to Spiritual Growth

LOVING OTHERS COMPASSIONATELY

A developing vertical relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will find its manifestations on the horizontal, since there is no act that begins with the love of God that does not end with the love of neighbor.

The great and foremost commandment (“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind”; Matthew 22:37) is the foundation for the second great commandment (“You shall love your neighbor as yourself”; Matthew 22:39). After washing the feet of His disciples, Jesus elevated the standard by which we are called to love others in His new commandment: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34; cf. John 15:12; 1 John 3:23). The sphere of this new commandment is universal: it extends first to our brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, and beyond this to our “neighbors” in this world who do not know Jesus.