“Love is really where Jesus is at,” says Louisa Hope. “You look to what Jesus did and how He behaved with people, and in my heart there was no choice but to say, ‘How can we get the good out of what’s happened in this circumstance? How can we encourage everybody to not fall into hate and fear, but to look to what Jesus said – to love our neighbour, even though it’s hard sometimes.”
Louisa Hope and her mother were two of the hostages in the Lindt Cafe siege in Sydney in December 2014, when a lone gunman held 18 people hostage for 16 hours. Three people, including the gunman, were killed in the incident. Louisa is now the ambassador for a new ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ campaign to be launched on Harmony Day (Monday 21 March) from Common Grace and Bible Society Australia. She will kick off the week-long daily devotional series on Monday sharing her experience of being held hostage by a mad man and now how she looks to Jesus to help overcome the temptation to hate and fear.
The daily email devotions will run from Monday 21 to Monday 28 of March. Every day will feature another Australian Christian meditating on what it means to “love thy neighbour”. They will Pastor Jarrod McKenna, one of the founders of Common Grace, Kanishka Raffel, the new Dean of Sydney’s St Andrew’s Cathedral, blogger and lecturer at United Theological College, Dr Ben Myers, Pastor and Indigenous leader Ray Minniecon, Dr Michael Frost, vice principal at at Morling College and Jacqui Rémond, director of Catholic Earthcare.
“Together, let’s believe for the Australian Church to be renewed in neighbour-love, focusing our hearts and minds on Jesus as he lays down his life for us this Easter,” said a spokesperson for Common Grace.
Eternity’s Sebastian James spoke to Louisa Hope this week. Watch his interview here:
To sign up to the ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ daily email campaign, click here.
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