The greatest commandment that the Lord gives is to love the Lord our God with all our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. In the parable of the good Samaritan in the book of Luke 10:25-37, Jesus answered the question of a lawyer about who is our neighbor.
A priest and a Levite passed by that man who was robbed and unconscious and did nothing. While a Samaritan who was at that time counted as cast out people and lower than Jewish, stopped and helped that fallen man. He didn’t care if there was a chance he might be robbed or his schedule is now messed up. He treated that man and even pay to have him taken care of.
Martin Luther King Jr commented on this and said that the priest and Levite had question in their heart that is ‘if I stop and help this person, what would happen to me?’ while the Samaritan had a totally different question, that is ‘if I don’t stop, what would happen to this person?
From these two questions, we can totally see the character of a person, who resembles Jesus? We need to examine ourselves and check, which question do we ask ourselves when we help others? What kind of character do we have? Many people do not want to serve at the church and serve God for that matter, because of this: the desire to seek their own reward, the selfish thought that hinders people from sharing the love of God to others.
God has given to us everything that we need freely at the cost of His Son, it doesn’t cost us anything except to believe in Him. yet, we keep everything that God give us abundantly to ourselves. The term to love other as we love ourselves should show that what we do to ourselves then we should do the same to others. We always think about our own safety, so then we should start thinking about the safety of others. We always want to get noticed; how about paying attention to others as well? We don’t want to be offended; how about stop offending others and think before we act and speak. Whatever the treatment that we give to us, which is normally we want the best for us, start giving that treatment to others and that way the love of God will shine through and we are doing His commandment.
Luke 10:37
Daily prayer
Lord, forgive me if I was being selfish all this time and seek reward only for my doing. While You Lord has sacrificed Your Son for my sake to set an example for me to sacrifice for others. Thank You for Your Word, renew my mind and my heart that I can become more like You and act selflessly. In the Name of Jesus I pray.
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