Love Your Neighbor
It used to be that everyone knew their neighbors. I remember many years ago we would have a big neighborhood cookout once a year, now we are lucky if our neighbor waves as they pull into their driveway.
I guess everyone is just so busy with their lives to notice who is around them or fear has gripped our world so much that people are afraid to step in to help a neighbor out.
In the Bible, there is a parable about the Good Samaritan. I’m sure all of us have heard of it or at least are familiar with what “a Good Samaritan” is. A Good Samaritan helps their neighbor, but what (or who) exactly is our neighbor?
A lawyer in the parable also asked Jesus this same question:
“He (the lawyer) wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?'” (Luke 10:29)
Like the lawyer, we too tend to minimize our boundaries of who we are responsible to help and ask similar questions. Instead of seeing the need, we ask ourselves, “whose neighbor are they anyhow?” Jesus never answered the lawyer’s question of “who” directly, but He did tell him how…
‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’, and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’ (Luke 10:27)
In the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25), a traveling man is beaten and left for dead along the side of the road. Three people come by, the first two (a priest and a Levite) decide that it is someone else’s responsibility (or someone else’s problem), so they both walk on by. The third person, (the Good Samaritan), stops and not only helps the battered traveler, but goes above and beyond and pays for medical treatment.
When Jesus tells us to be a good neighbor (Luke 10:27), He doesn’t define our neighbors by our address but instead by the need and by how we will act and react towards the need.
Just the other day, I was walking out of the grocery store and it happened to be getting dark. Another couple walked out the same time as me, as they looked around, they stopped and the gentleman said to me, “we will wait until you get loaded up!” As I loaded my groceries, they kept lookout. I didn’t know them and they didn’t know me, but we are neighbors. They could have possibly prevented some kind of lurking danger around me. They saw a need and reacted to it even though they could have just walked on by.
Every day we encounter people who are in danger or who may even be battered on the side of the road, we have a decision to make, “will we be their neighbor?”
BLESSINGS. Laurie
@copyright2019 laurieadams
*You can find more of my devotions on my devotion Facebook page: womentakingastand
What a powerful message, Laurie. We live in a large city, and the people are always rushing by. I need to pay more attention to my ‘neighbor’.