He was a young man. He could have been my son. He was tall and thin. Crouched over my refuse bin, digging into it to find something to eat. I was shocked and dismayed. As christians, this shouldn’t happen on our watch.

Love is the most fundamental aspect of life. Without love there is no life. Love God, love yourself and love others. Love is one of the ingredients of an happy life.

God instructs us to love one another in Matthew 22:39 “Love your neighbour as yourself”. And in 1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God”.

So who is your neighbour? These are not only the people living next door to you but also your family and relatives, friends, colleagues, cultural group, fellow South Africans, in fact, anyone whose life you can or are affecting. The latter includes all the people you do not know but who passes you on the street, calls you on the phone, shares South Africa with you.

And what is this love really? It is to be empathic and respectful towards someone else as you would ideally expect any person to be towards you. To be happy to grant others the same privileges you have.

In Micah 6:8 it is clear that God expects us to do justly, to love and to be humble. Don’t judge others if they are not doing what is just – leave the judging to God. Very few people get judged into life change anyway. Far more get loved into it. Be the best example yourself of doing what is just and love others.

1 Corinthians 13 describes real love in more detail:

South Africa has many languages. Even if I were fluent in all of them and I do not really love the other speakers of those languages, I would just be making a noise. 

If I could predict the future of our country or know each and every secret or everything there is to know or have sufficient faith to move and drop the Drakensberg into the Indian Ocean, it would be useless if I couldn’t apply these powers to the advantage of all South Africans.

There would be no point in sacrificing my life for my country or giving all my wealth to the poor in South Africa if I couldn’t do it out of genuine love.

Love tries to understand the circumstances of my fellow South Africans and regards them as fellow human beings. I will not regard myself more valuable or important than any of them. I will not be jealous of other South Africans.

I will be slow to anger and will be willing to forgive other South Africans for what they did to me and my family in the past.

Because of love I will cry when I learn about the unjust of the current and the past. About curruption, cruelty and selfishness. But I will jabula (rejoice) when truth reigns. When honesty and hard work are rewarded, when God is consulted in all government decision-making, when we all strive and pray towards a safer South Africa for all of us.

Love will enable me to patiently wait for a fellow South African, regardless of any unjust aimed at me and without bad-mouthing him or her, to also discover the power of love.

In the end our cultures, our wealth, our pride and everything else we hold dear will disappear and only our faith in God and His promises, our vision to join Him one day and love, the most important of these three, will remain.

One day we will all understand how much God has always loved each of us here in beautiful South Africa and how He wanted us to love each other in the same way.

Begin by loving your spouse and children like no one else can. Families form the core of a healthy society. A new South Africa is built upon loving families. From this base we can love all our neighbours.

I will do my utmost to be an example of God’s love in my beloved country, South Africa.