He Is Your Neighbor

By: Jenifer Metzger

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul,

with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first commandment.

And the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

There is no commandment greater than these.

Mark 12:30-31

The Bible says to love your neighbor as yourself. We know that our neighbor is our physical neighbor, the one living in the house next door to us. We also know that our neighbor is the one around us while we are out shopping, at the library, or the doctor's office. We know that our neighbor is anyone around us at any given moment. But we often forget one of the most important neighbors in our life.

Our husband.

Your husband is your neighbor. We are called by God to submit to our husbands {Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18; 1 Peter 3:1}. But we are also called by God to love our husband, because he is our neighbor.

What does it look like to love our husband, our neighbor, as our self?

Listen.

We want to be listened to. When you are speaking to your husband and he isn't listening to you, you feel unimportant, dishonored, even rejected. You want your husband to give you his full attention and eye contact. Give him the same.

Forgive.

We all sin. We all do wrong. We all have attitudes from time to time. We all have faults. We want to be forgiven of our sins and our faults. Offer your husband forgiveness too.

Help.

Just as we help our neighbor next door with little things here or there, we should be helping our husband. Help him with his daily tasks, run an errand for him, put his shoes up when he forgets or bring him a pain reliever when he has a headache, just help him out.

Follow the Golden Rule.

The Golden Rule says, "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." {Matthew 7:12} If you want your husband to treat you a certain way, treat him that way. Don't treat him rudely or disrespectfully and then expect him to treat you like a queen. Treat him well and he will treat you well.

As you go about your day, think of your husband as your neighbor and remember God's command to love him.