Everybody is your Neighbor!

"Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?  He said, 'the one who showed him mercy'; and Jesus said to him, 'you go, and do likewise."

Luke 10:36-37  

The parable of the Good Samaritan is very well known in the Bible.  It is so well known that, well at least in the state of Maryland, we have the 'Good Samaritan Law'.  This law protects you from lawsuits in the event you come across someone and decide to give them help.  The story goes, that there was a Jewish man that was walking along a path, and robbers came on him and beat him, leaving him for dead.  A Priest went right past him offering no help, as did a Levite man.  However, there was a Samaritan man that came upon him, and Jesus would tell us that this man had compassion on the beaten Jew.  Now, we could easily read that and go, ok well somebody at least helped the man.  But, this Samaritan man was not just somebody, Jews and Samaritans had been enemies for generations.  So basically, this is like you get beaten and your own people walk right past you, but your sworn enemy is the one who stops and fixes you up, and renders aid to you.  Not only did he fix him up, but the Samaritan took him to an inn and paid for him and offered to pay the keeper more if he needed more aid after he left.  The part of this story that stuck with me the most is that this Samaritan helped a man that his culture and society would not approve of him helping.  If you look around our world today, you can easily see how divided we are in our country and all around the world.  We forget that we are to love God and our neighbor.  It does us no good to know what the right thing to do is if you never do it!  That is why in this scripture Jesus tells the lawyer asking him, to "go, and do likewise".  Who can you be a good neighbor to today?  Has the Lord put somebody on your heart to go and help?  What is holding you back from helping people?  Today pray and ask the Lord to give you a compassionate heart to serve others, when doing so you will live a blessed and fulfilled life!  Love you all!  Praying for you and yours!  Have a blessed day, it's your choice!