“It says,” … “that you must 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 you must love your neighbor just as much as you love yourself.” (Luke 10:27, TLB)
There is an aspect of seeing that we can miss at times, even if we have eyes to see everything around us. We can in our casualness become unseeing and dismissive of people around us. It happens when we are consumed with our own busy lives, schedules and the thoughts. We see others but then again, we don’t see them somehow. We were headed somewhere or had something to do and we couldn’t be bothered. Sometimes we even see them and we avoid them for whatever reason. In the latter sense we border on sin because we are choosing who we care about and who we are interested in. As Christians we allow this unseeing to happen to us and it really shouldn’t if we are being sensitive to the Holy Spirit. If we have the love of Christ in us as, we should allow the love of God to flow through us without determining who is worthy to be loved. God loves the world and everyone in it and He loves us each one of us without partiality (Romans 2:11). Each one of us, are to be imitators and givers of that great love.
Jesus gives us a powerful parable and completely relevant faith lesson in the story of The Good Samaritan. In this parable, He teaches us about real love in action. He leaves us with this powerful directive, “Yes, now go and do the same” (Luke 10:37, TLB). He also gives witness to the selective treatment of others and its affects. What we fail at times to remember in the story we call The Good Samaritan; is our treatment of others does reflect our relationship with God. Christ’s list of characters includes the very religious, the very busy and an unexpected righteous and benevolent benefactor. He also deals with the power of prejudice as He gives us an antihero as the one who truly is kind and loving. The Good Samaritan is the true neighbor who loves with the love of God because he sees need and loves by providing without hesitation or conditions. It is a parable; that is both cautionary and directive as it reminds us to see others in need and to be attentive in our awareness and treatment of any persons we find around us. This includes loving any non-Christians and our treatment of Christian brothers and sisters as well. Our love should be sincere and must not be in “in word and in tongue but in deed and truth” (1 John 4:18). We must see as Savior sees.
May we all love others and see others in manner that is representative of how God sees us. Maybe the challenge is to slow down enough in what we are thinking about; to see everyone we pass by each day. We need to care about people more than ourselves and our schedule. If we have the love of God in us, we should cast aside any inconvenience as we respond in loving action to others. His love in us must be without partiality to those we hardly know, to those different then ourselves and to those no one expects us to love. If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must love others in the way that God has loved us.
The love of The Good Samaritan exhibited God’s love as love, without measure or limits. The Good Samaritan exhibited in His actions that he loved God with all of his heart, soul and strength. He allowed his eyes to see as God sees. Helen Keller addressing the physical act of not being able to see, said this, “The lack of sight forbids our hands to engage in many of the noblest human acts, but love is open to us and love teaches us the highest of arts – the art of living.” Lord, help us to truly see others as you see them and love them as you love us.
“Do this and you shall live” (TLB, Luke 10:28).
Suggested Reading … Luke 10
Re-edited from a previous writing …
