Key Scripture:

“A time to love, and a time to hate.” Ecclesiastes 3:8a

Devotional:

“Who is my neighbor?” Now that’s a question that’s centuries old.

In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus had an intriguing conversation with a man who asked about inheriting eternal life. In response to his question, Jesus replies, “Hey, you’re a scholar. What does the law say?” to which the man responds, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.” 

Jesus then responds, “You have answered correctly. Do this.” And in two words, Jesus offends this religious man’s mind to reveal his heart. The man, seeking to justify why his actions didn’t align with the truth, asked, “Who is my neighbor?”

Why that question you ask? He wanted to choose whom to love and whom to hate.

This led to the telling of the story of the Good Samaritan that we love and know so well about a Jewish man traveling the road from Jerusalem to Jericho who was stripped, wounded and left for dead. In the parable, Jesus shares how a priest and a Levite each passed by, looked at their neighbor on the verge of death, and chose to look away. Then, despite the historical, religious and ethnic divisions that existed between the Jews and Samaritans, the Good Samaritan came and showed compassion as he tended to the man’s wounds and carried him to a safe place for care and recovery (and he didn’t even post about it on Instagram).

And I start here because more often than not, we focus on the Good Samaritan, yet ignore the reality that the two religious people walked away. That day, three men were given a choice: one man chose to love his neighbor, and the other two didn’t choose. And by choosing to remain indifferent and not make a choice, they made a choice. And that choice certainly wasn’t love.

My fear for us in this day and age is as American Christians, our privilege affords us the luxury to keep scrolling, to change the channel, and ignore what is going on in the lives of our neighbors. It allows us to turn away from entering into relationships that have the potential to cost us something.

And if your first response to my fear above was, “There is another side to the story.” And your second response was, “The media blows things out of proportion.” And your third response was, “Well, __________.” I’d like to ask you, when it comes to your neighbors, what side of the road are you on? 

From the moment that we surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we are on a lifelong journey of learning what it means to truly love the Lord with all of our heart, all of our soul, and all of mind and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And yet daily, we sit in the tension of what it looks like to love the people of this world yet hate their sin and the wickedness of a fallen world that is found around every corner. So, what does that mean? How do we do that? 

Scott Sauls nailed it when he wrote, “The more conservative we are in our belief that every word of scripture is true, the more liberal we will become in how we love every kind of person. To the degree that we understand how loved and forgiven we are, we will be among the least offended and least offensive people in the world. We will also be among the most loving, others-oriented, and life-giving people in the world.”¹

I’ve learned that distance creates distortion, while proximity creates passion. And in recent years, we have gotten so good at boundaries that we’ve forgotten how to love people around us. But, what if we took Jesus’s command to love our neighbors seriously?

That was his command: “Love your neighbor.”
Support the kid in foster care with no lunch money. 
Embrace the scared pregnant teenager looking for help.
Welcome the Muslim refugee into your community.
Mentor the middle school student wrestling with gender identity.
Forgive your political enemy at the office.
Honor the disabled veteran at the grocery store.

Love your neighbor.
Advocate for the child at the border.
Pray for the first responder on the front lines.
Care for the single mom who walked away from domestic abuse.
Invest in the outspoken, know-it-all college student.
Spend time with your elderly next-door neighbor.
Remember the prisoner on death row.

And don’t stop fighting for them because it feels like you are losing.
Meet them in the messiest of places.
Stand in the gap.
Lay down your life.
Pray dangerous prayers.
Fight from your knees.
And wait for them to come home to the Father.

Because when people come home to the Father, it changes everything.

The gospel demands more than we ever thought it could, but gosh, it offers more than we ever could have imagined. So, even though our world may be a mess, may we be a people with calloused hands and calloused knees as we seek to love and bring the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ to all of our neighbors, in these days, at this time, for such a time as this. 

Because choosing to love our neighbor isn’t new, it’s just our turn.

Deepening questions:

• If you’re honest, do you treat the neighbors that you encounter in your everyday life like the Levite and Priest or the Good Samaritan?
• If you took inventory of all the people in your life, do you have more friends or more enemies?
• Part of our focus in the 10:10 Life is Abundant Life where we are on a mission to care for our neighbors that the enemy is trying to take out. How can you leverage this season to invest your time serving your neighbors?

Further reading:

Luke 10:25-37

Footnotes:

¹ From Weakness to Strength: 8 Vulnerabilities That Can Bring Out the Best in Your Leadership – Scott Sauls