From the YouVersion Bible App Devotional, “Advent, Day 21”

Who Are My Neighbors?

Yesterday, we learned that Jesus’ two greatest commandments are to love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. When you read these commands, you might question or wonder who your neighbor is. And you’d be in good company with people in the Bible.

In Luke 10, someone asks Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replies by telling a parable, or story, which became known as the parable of the Good Samaritan. In this parable, a man is attacked by robbers and left for dead. Everyone who should have helped this man—a priest and a Levite—crossed the road instead of helping the man. Then a Samaritan saw the man, helped him find a place to recover, and covered the cost of his stay.

In this culture, the Samaritan would have had many reasons to cross the road and leave the man like the priest and the Levite did. Instead, he went out of his way to help and show mercy to the man.

So, who are your neighbors? Whoever comes to mind, the answer is yes. And this includes people who are harder to love, different from you, or have a social barrier of any kind that might keep you from engaging with them.

Remember, love is following Jesus’ example by treating everyone as valuable and worthy of sacrificial care.

We see this in the parable of the Good Samaritan, and we see it through God’s people in the Old Testament. In the Book of Kings, we’re introduced to a military general named Naaman.

He is described as a great and respected warrior who was famous for his many victories over God’s people. Scripture also tells us that he had leprosy, an incurable disease that would likely disfigure and kill him over the course of a few painful years.

In one of Naaman’s raids, a young girl was captured and forced to be his wife’s servant. This girl was now living in a foreign land away from any remaining family she might have and shared the same roof as the man who likely destroyed her entire community.

Yet, she had compassion on him. Through a conversation with Naaman’s wife, she shared that she knew a prophet who could heal his disease. Instead of taking revenge or holding a grudge, she showed love and mercy toward Naaman.

Ultimately, Naaman would experience healing from this otherwise incurable disease. And it’s because the young girl chose to share the love and mercy of her God with someone in need.

Pause and Pray:

Lord, thank You for the example of love You have shown us, and for the people who are also examples of Your love lived out. Please give me the strength to love everyone in my life the way You have called me to. I can’t do it on my own. In Jesus’ name, amen.

I have always been fascinated by the story of the Good Samaritan. A man who was ostracized by the Jews is the one who stopped to save a Jewish man who had been robbed and beaten. How many times do we avoid people who are different than we are because we don’t feel comfortable around them? I can think of several people right now whom I have avoided or limited my contact with them because of their differences of their past actions towards me. There is a former student in my Sunday school class who in the last few years decided she is transgender and has “married” a female. Her actions make me uncomfortable, but at the same time, I know she heard God’s truth and actually listened at one time. She has fallen away and needs to come back to God. God continues to remind me that I am not her judge; He is. There is the neighbor who attacked my husband over a decade ago. We still don’t speak to each other and he seems to go out of his way to act angry and belligerent around us. The protection order from the court long since went away, but we still have no contact. I do pray for him, that he will come to know the Lord and stop depending on alcohol as his crutch. But I am afraid to approach him because he can be violent. Finally, there are my many liberal friends and family who think that I am somewhere lost in conservative land and don’t want to even talk to me anymore. I try to find what we have in common and call and talk to them about those things. God doesn’t distinguish between Republicans and Democrats. To Him, we are all lost sheep in need of a Savior. So, who is my neighbor? Everyone whose life I touch and whose life touches mine.