Loving Your Neighbour, Even When You Don't Like Them

The Command Nobody Wants to Hear

Be honest. When someone mentions "love your neighbour," do you immediately think of the person who makes your life difficult? The colleague who undermines you. The family member who always has something to say. The actual neighbour who seems determined to make your days harder.

This week at Crowd Church, Mike Harris tackled one of the most famous and most uncomfortable commands in the Bible. And he didn't pretend to have it all figured out. "I am on this journey with you," Mike admitted. "This is not something that I am anywhere near where I want to be."

And if we're being truthful, most of us find it easy enough to love people we actually like. It's the difficult ones that trip us up. And Jesus, as he often does, refuses to give us an easy way out.

More Than Just Being Nice

Our culture has watered down the idea of love to mean something like "don't be violent and remember to recycle." But that's not what Jesus asks of us. The love he commands is both incredibly challenging and deeply counter-cultural.

In Mark 12, Jesus is asked which commandment matters most. His answer brings together two commands from the Old Testament: love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. "There is no greater commandment than these," he says.

Mike suggested something worth sitting with: we demonstrate our love for God by loving those who bear his image. Every person we encounter carries the fingerprint of the Creator. Even the ones who drive us up the wall.

The Story That Still Shocks

Jesus told a parable to answer the question "Who is my neighbour?" And the answer was designed to make his audience deeply uncomfortable.

A man gets beaten and robbed on the road. A priest walks by and avoids him. A Levite does the same. Then a Samaritan stops, helps, pays for his care, and promises to cover any additional costs.

Now we read “Samaritans” and think of the nice people on the call line, or the charity shop. But at the time, Samaritans were the enemies of the Jews, the people Jesus was speaking to. This wasn't a heartwarming tale about a kind stranger. It was a gut-punch about loving people you'd rather avoid.

During Conversation Street, the question came up: who would the Samaritan be if Jesus told this story today? The answers were telling. Someone who's been cancelled. Someone from the "other side" politically. Someone whose association might cost you your reputation.

"The Samaritan was helping someone who had no hope of ever being able to help him. There was no sort of 'what goes around comes around.' It's gonna cost him something."

That's the kind of love Jesus commands. Costly love. Love that expects nothing in return.

Costly Love Isn't New

God built this principle into the laws he gave Israel long before Jesus told his parable. Farmers were commanded not to harvest the edges of their fields. Those crops were left for the poor to collect.

This was inefficient. It cost them something. And that was exactly the point.

The love God calls us to will cost us. Time. Money. Comfort. Reputation. Pride. There's no version of this that comes cheap.

How Do We Actually Do This?

Mike didn't leave us with just a challenge. He offered practical ways to open ourselves to God's grace in this process. Because we can't manufacture this kind of love on our own. Romans 8 tells us that God is using everything in our lives to slowly change us into the likeness of Jesus.

Look at Jesus looking at you in love. A psychiatrist named Kate Thompson said we're born looking for someone looking at us in love. That desire never fully goes away. Mike shared how he spent time at a quiet retreat simply focusing on this reality: the creator of the universe is looking at you in love. "When I walked out of the building, I really honestly can't explain it, but I did feel like God had done something in me."

Read about how Jesus treated people. Mike shared an uncomfortable confession. He was walking back to his gardening job, listening to a Christian podcast, when he saw a woman who looked like she might be struggling with addiction. His gut reaction? To give her a wide berth. "My heart is not where I want it to be," he admitted. But then he turned to scripture and read about Jesus touching lepers, moving towards outcasts, showing compassion to those society rejected. Reading those stories, Mike believes, slowly changes us.

Remember what Jesus has done for you. God saved the Israelites from Egypt before giving them the law. Their motivation to follow wasn't fear alone but gratitude. We love because he first loved us. Reflecting on the cross moves us from obligation to overflow.

Watch your reactions. Mike offered a helpful gauge: the people closest to you will notice when you're becoming more loving and patient. It's easy to be proactive about love. It's our reactive moments that reveal where we really are.

Conversation Street

Who would be the Samaritan if Jesus told the story today?

The panel didn't shy away from this one. Mike suggested someone who's been cancelled for moral issues—someone whose association might damage your reputation. Matt joked about football rivalries, but the point is, whoever represents "the other side" for you. Republican or Democrat. Labour or Tory. The person whose views you find hardest to stomach.

If you don't like your neighbour, how do you love them?

Jenny offered a starting point: pray for them. "If you haven't got any other ideas, you can pray for them." She shared how she's been praying blessing over someone difficult recently. Matt added that, with a troublesome neighbour, he would intentionally say 'good morning' with a smile, not to wind them up, but to break down walls. Mike suggested that sometimes love looks like not speaking negatively about someone when they're not present. "You are valuing that person as somebody who's created in the image of God."

Is it okay to pray for people without their permission?

Jenny acknowledged that this is an interesting question. For general prayers of blessing, she feels comfortable praying without asking. For more specific prayers, she tends to check first. The consensus was that praying blessing and God's goodness over someone doesn't require permission.

Where do boundaries fit in?

Jenny raised an important tension we have to deal with in that Jesus calls us to costly love, but there's also a need for healthy boundaries. The Good Samaritan helped, but he didn't become a full-time carer. He acted generously within appropriate limits. This is something to keep wrestling with and talking to God about.

The Butterfly Reminder

Mike shared a picture that stuck with us. A butterfly is only a butterfly for about the last 5% of its life. The rest is spent in earlier stages of transformation.

We're in process. The Bible says that when Jesus returns, we'll be like him because we'll see him as he truly is. Until then, we're being morphed—slowly, imperfectly, but genuinely—into his likeness.

That should take the pressure off. And it should motivate us to keep focusing on him.

Your Next Step This Week

1. Spend five minutes looking at Jesus looking at you in love. Put your phone down. Sit quietly. Let your mind wander back as many times as it takes. Something shifts when we receive before we try to give.

2. Pray blessing over someone difficult. Not "God, change them." Just blessing. Watch what happens in your own heart.

3. Read one story of Jesus interacting with an outsider. Matthew 8 (the leper), Luke 19 (Zacchaeus), John 4 (the Samaritan woman). Ask the Holy Spirit to help you become more like him as you read.

4. Choose one small act of love toward someone you struggle with. A genuine greeting. Refusing to speak negatively about them. A behind-the-scenes act of generosity they'll never know about.

5. Notice your reactions this week. When someone cuts you off in traffic or sends that annoying email, what's your gut response? Don't beat yourself up—just notice. And invite God into the process.

A Question Worth Asking

What would change if you genuinely believed that every person you encounter—including the ones who frustrate you most—carries the image of the God who loves you?

This isn't about trying harder. It's about receiving more. More of his love. More of his grace. More of his Spirit transforming us from the inside out.

Because we love because he first loved us. And maybe that's the only way any of us can learn to love the neighbours we don't particularly like.