Love Your Neighbor

How easily we can focus on the wrong question...  

Jesus was asked: "And who is my neighbor?" 

Jesus replied with a story about a person who had been attacked by robbers who beat him, stripped him of his clothes and left him half dead.  The first two people to come by were religious people, passing him by.  A third person was unacceptable to the religious people, and yet he was the one who stopped to help and went out of his way to care for the injured man.  

The issue isn't who is my neighbor...

"Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to this man?"

The one who had mercy on him. 

Jesus told him, 
     "Go and do likewise." LUKE 10:36-37

We're called to BE the neighbor!

Frank Laubach once wrote:

What would it look like to be as wide open to people and their needs as I am toward God? 

God working IN me is essential!  First, I need to be wide open to God!  The more fully I experience his mercy, grace and love, the more fully His nature grows in me.  Paul talks about it as the fruit of the Spirit:

...love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
GALATIANS 5:22

It becomes a way of living...

BE a neighbor!

Credit for this post goes to my friend Sue, who reminded a group of this important perspective in the midst of a discussion yesterday!