I have to love who? Aww come on...

He answered: '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 neighbour as yourself.' - Luke 10:27 - NIV2010

Ahhh, a tough one for most of us, to love our neighbor as ourselves. We all love lots of things, family, food, cars, homes, TV shows, TV Stars, Facebook, our phones…but do we truly love anything as much as ourselves? I know I love my family, without a doubt beyond anything on this earth. Do I love others more than myself? That guy who cut me off or the person in the 12 or less items line with way more than 12 items or the neighbor who throws weedy dirt clumps over my fence or the other neighbor whose father tried to cut down my 60 foot tall tree with a machete?

Do I love people that can be self centered, self serving and rude?  Yes.  Do I love the "act" or the “sin”. No. Do I think that all of us in some way fall under the category I just described? Yes. I would most definitely help most anyone with anything I could, but I know my heart needs work.

In Luke 10:25-37 the Samaritan proves himself a neighbor by his unprejudiced mercy and compassion.I need to be more like this, we all need to be like this.

But who is our neighbor? Our neighbor is determined without distinction of race, nationality, or religion; the people that affect us either good or bad are our neighbors. More specifically in light of the Good Samaritan parable, he who needs our aid, no matter who he is, is our neighbor. Now this leads me to the question, “are WE neighborly?" Are we gracious, kind, helpful, merciful, friendly and compassionate to our fellow man? Do we wish to help our fellow man more than we desire to please ourselves? Most of us I am sure fall short.

We have the model for how a good neighbor should act; he was perfect in his execution of how we should be or strive to be in every way. Jesus saw awful sinners whose sin robbed their potential, stripped their spiritual ideals and broke them. Jesus helped them rise by coming down to where they are….he was the supreme Samaritan. In his greatest feat he gave mankind a corresponding act of mercy by his sacrifice and secured our salvation through his resurrection. No matter how much we don’t deserve his grace mercy, no matter how un-neighborly we are. Jesus is always there, and he loves us. God gives us abundantly more than we ask. Let’s try to do that for others.

Thanks for checking in >>John