TCRA

Luke 10:27
27He 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 neighbor as yourself.”

Love your neighbor as yourself, this is a very simple statement, one we hear so often in our churches. What if Jesus meant it when he said this? How would our lives change, would they change at all? I know my life would change.

I am going to assume you all know who Jesus says our neighbors are and how we should treat them (Luke 10:30-37). Or neighbors are all around us right? It’s that part that I always fail at. I know there must have been hundreds of times that I would be walking downtown and I would pass someone who is hurting. I would walk right past the homeless people and pretend I didn’t see them. In fact I did that just today, as I was coming home there was a man standing on the corner holding a sign: “homeless and hungry, God Bless”. I just passed him and tried not to make eye contact. If I believed and acted on what Jesus said, what could I have done differently? I could have given him some change right, gave him some food. Is that treating him as myself? Something tells me no. The man in Jesus’ story went so much further than just tossing him some money or food. He cleaned and dressed the mans wounds, he put the man on his OWN donkey, he put him up in an inn. Not only did he put him in an inn, he told the innkeeper he would reimburse him for any extra expenses.

Wow, how radical, who in this day and age would do that for a complete stranger? And is that what we should do? Is that even practical now? I don’t know if it’s practical to put every homeless or hurt person up in a hotel but I think that there are other ways we can dress their wounds both physical and spiritually. Ben wrote a great post on this very subject. The way we can help these people may not be with money or food, it just might be by walking and listening to them. This would show them that we care more than money would ever do.

Jenny and I met a homeless man recently by the name of Scott M. Huber, Jenny and I decided to show him some love. We wouldn’t buy him food or give him money, at first. We asked him questions. We listened to his story. And boy did he tell his story. Toward the end, after about 2 hours or so, Jenny went and bought him a sandwich and drink from Pot Belly’s. We assured him we would be back soon to talk again, and we will. He thanked us for listening more than he thanked us for the food. The fact that we took a genuine interest him meant more to him than food or money ever would. I believe that on that day we where loving that man as ourselves.

P.S. I know of one group who goes above and beyond on this subject, go read their story.