Bible in 90, Day 09: Love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
Leviticus 15-26
It’s interesting how throughout Leviticus 19, God repeats the phrase “I am the LORD.” (Recall from a few days ago that this is the all-caps LORD, therefore, God’s personal name – Yahweh.) He is reminding us time and time again that laws He is laying out find their root in His character and holiness. It should come as no shock then that the second greatest commandment (see Matthew 22:36-40) is rooted in this same character of God.
When God tells the people of Israel to love their neighbors as themselves, He follows it with the reminder, “I am Yahweh.” You could almost say that the second greatest commandment is rooted in the first. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves, for Yahweh is God and we worship Him.
God roots the second command in the truth of who He is, which should point us toward a couple of things. First, our neighbor (which Jesus identifies as simply any human being that God brings across our path, see Luke 10:25-37) was created by God and therefore deserves our respect and dignity as God’s handiwork. Second, God loves our neighbor, and we are to be like God, so we should love him too.
Let’s see others as God sees them. Let’s remember to love our neighbors, for Yahweh is God.
Words of Reason 
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