Why should we love our fellow humans?
What is the value of a human life?
What is a human life worth?
Is human life precious?
Men and God view these questions from two different perspectives.
What price do you place on a Human Life? In many men eyes a life is something cheap or common. A mere convenience or inconvenience to their selfish desires and such an outlook has led to terrible acts and consequences.
Answer for yourself what the following say about the value of human life.
Genocide: one example of the Jews by the Nazis
Abortion (babies in womb)
Euthanasia
Starvation in Third World (wars, corrupt, politics)
Homeless in our towns
Neglect of the elderly
Yet all these things, in a sense we allow, for they are going on in the world. Yes, people who practices or allow such things must see the human lives involved as cheap and common of truly little value.
But, not so with God, our Father, he has forbidden all these things because he created and formed each person and breathed the breath of Life into them. God sees each unique ( like a fingerprint) human life as unbelievably valuable and precious to him.
For God so loved the world that he gave (that which was most precious to Him) his only begotten son Jesus Christ (to die the death of the cross) so that whoever (of the precious human lives) believed in Him (Jesus Christ) should not perish (go to hell) but have everlasting life.
God revealed how he felt about man`s value and worth when he himself became the man Jesus Christ who went about doing good, healing the sick, sick opening blind eyes, deaf ears, setting the captives free and proclaiming the good news about salvation.
Yes, God absolutely loves humankind in general and each unique life in particular is precious, and he earnestly desires that his people should be like him in how we view mankind.
We need to recognize the value of each human life and so love our fellow humans and it is this is what we are considering in this study.
Why should we Love our fellow humans?
There are many reasons to why we should love our fellowmen and here are three of most important:
Reason 1. God Has Commanded It
Matthew 22:36-40.
Deuteronomy 6:5.
Leviticus 19:18; God has commanded us to be like Him.
Just love people the way you love yourself.
Just treat people the way you treat yourself.
Just speak to people the way you would like to be spoken to.
Just excuse and forgive people the way you would to be excused and forgiven.
So simple, so true, so absent, in so many lives.
Who is my Neighbour?
Anyone who needs your help. Anyone made in God`s image, Which is everyone in a sense of immense value demands a response.
Remember the Good Samaritan? [Luke 10:37]
Go and Do thou likewise!
Reason 2. Man is God`s special creation and Is made in the Image of God (according to His likeness)'
Genesis 1:26-27; God said let us plural (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) make Man in our own
Image.
What does this mean “made in the Image of God”?
God fashions each person as a potter forms a pot from clay and then breathes life into it and we become a Living Soul. Man has a Body, Soul, and a Spirit. There is a divine imprint on man, as a coin receives the imprint of the monarch's head so does each person receive something that reflects God our maker. This image/imprint is seen most clearly in our souls, God has made us Beings (like Him)
Who have personality as does God which helps us connect with Him
Who have moral choice between right or wrong
Who have intelligence or ability to think
Who have ability to love or to hate
God has given dignity and honour above all the rest of the earthly creation and given us dominion of other life forms. Each person no matter how far fallen still in some way reflects the Image of God.
Matthew 22:20; Give to God what belongs to him. All your heart, all your soul, all your
might and strength. God`s Image is on all humankind let us bring these lost
coins back to Him. Valuable and precious lost coins, sweep until we find
them and rejoice.
Genesis 1:26-27; When God made man (Adam) he had both male and female personalities
in Him. And in [Genesis 2:21-22] we find God taking the woman out from a rib in Adam`s side.
Now, God himself is a trinity, one in essence but three in personality (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). A community of personalities formed in one being. And in this respect was man like God, male/female in the original Adam.
Genesis 2:24; And when a man and woman marry, God views the two personalities as one
flesh or being. And this union of a man and woman reflects the ultimate union of Christ and His Church. Become one. All our personalities in constant union with God himself. God wants to bring personalities into community and unity.
Reason 3. God sets such a High Value on Human Life that He Personally Identifies with It
2 Peter 3:9; God does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance. God has no
pleasure in death of wicked. He sees something unbelievably valuable and precious lost. Something made in his own Image in some ways like Him.
Matthew 25:31-40; Jesus Christ so loves, so values humankind that he totally identifies
himself with them in their suffering, at their lowest, at their worst, hunger, thirsting, nakedness, sickness, in prison, yet recognizing that they are like God in some way.
Seeing their immense value through the eyes of God.
Identifying himself (being so in community) with them that he felt them their very acceptance or rejection, personally, and will judge us according to how we treated our fellow man.
This identification reveals intense love.
Summary
We should love our fellow man because
a] God loves them so much that he gave his most precious Son to the cross.
He has commanded it, he wants a community of love.
b] Each man, woman, child in some reflects God being made in his Image and likeness.
Each individual person has God`s stamp on them.
c} God so loves mankind that he completely identifies with Him in their suffering and judges us according to how we helped and failed our fellow man in their distress.
How should we react to his precious creations?
Q. What value has a human life?
A. Infinitely high in God's eyes.
John 13:34 A new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you.
Go and do thou likewise.
Amen
Prayer
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