Barak’s Talk

Hello. For any of you who don’t know me, my name is Barak Roach. Our family has been asked to speak on loving your neighbor.
I think that loving your neighbor means to love your fellow man. In Mathew chapter 22 verse thirty-six through verse thirty-nine a lawyer was talking to Jesus and he said “Master which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the lord with all of your heart, soul, and mind. That’s the first and great commandment. The second most important commandment of all of them is to love thy neighbor as much as you love yourself. I also think that if everyone loved their neighbor then the world would be a much better place. I think that all of the problems in the world could be traced back to people being unkind of greedy. Every problem could have easily been solved if people were nicer to each other.
All throughout the scriptures there are mentions of how important it is to love thy neighbor, Maybe not in those specific words, but it says it. Things like forgiveness and charity can be forms of loving your neighbors. Forgiveness is loving thy neighbor because if you don’t forgive people then you are constantly angry at them. If you are angry at someone then you can’t get along with them and they can’t get along with you. You would hold a grudge for a very long time, and if powerful enough people dislike each other for a long time, wars and fights will begin. So, wars can literally be prevented by being nice to people. That is something to think about
Loving thy neighbor means being kind to everyone so charity is a form of loving your neighbors. Charity is also listed everywhere in the scriptures things like “man should cleave unto eternal life and charity” And “faith hope and charity are essential to salvation.” (2 minutes here) And “stand fast in the faith; let all things be done with charity.” Obviously this must be a big deal or else we wouldn’t be reminded of it so much, but the other reason is because we are all commanded to love our neighbor. When we pass up an opportunity to serve others we always feel as if we should have helped them so we feel bad. When we do help them happiness spreads through us so it is always better to love our neighbor through charity. Even if you aren’t counting the fact that you are following the commandments, it is still worth it to be helpful because of the good feeling, it’s a win-win situation.
Loving thy neighbor also can mean being just plain being kind. Kindness can be shown through lots of different ways. One such way is service. Another way is just plain talking to them and being friends with them. I think that being kind also means to always be kind to them even if they cant hear you of they aren’t around
I would just like to say that I know that these words are true and if you follow these commandments, then you will live a happy and righteous life. I know that these things bring happiness to you and the people you are applying them to. I know that this is true and I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.