What Does Loving Your Neighbor as Yourself Entail?

True love, whether regarding yourself or your neighbor, means willing the genuine good of someone, which ultimately means gaining heaven. God the Father exemplifies this love par excellence in sending his only son, Jesus, so “that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

This kind of selfless, sacrificial love could entail literally laying down your life for your friends (John 15:13), and unquestionably requires that we will the true good even of our enemies and persecutors (Matt. 5:43-48), as Jesus himself did, so they that might be reconciled with and transformed by the Lord (see John 10:10, 14:27), and so we might be perfected ourselves (Matt. 5:48).

For more on this subject, please see our article “What is Authentic Christian Love?”