We Are Called to Love All
But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” LUKE 10:29 NIV
No matter where we go or what we do, we’re going to find ourselves relating to other people, right?
Some of them will be kind to us, and some won’t. In all honesty, some will even detest us if we follow Jesus. (Note that being detested isn’t necessarily evidence we are following Jesus . . . there’s no reason to give people non-Jesus reasons to detest us!) But God considers everyone we meet—everyone!—to be our neighbor. That means we have a chance to treat everyone we meet like God would treat them: with love and grace.
Now, this doesn’t mean we should let ourselves be abused or harmed in the name of “helping our neighbor.” But loving our neighbor does mean giving the same undeserved grace to others that God gave us.
That may take the form of a simple conversation with someone at the mailbox or the gas station. It might mean getting to know a stranger, or even serving an enemy. It could even require us to smile and refrain from conflict as we walk away from a bitter situation. Love is complicated!
Some of the most complicated scenes I responded to as a paramedic were the ones where a guilty person had killed an innocent person. I remember one call in particular, when we arrived at a two-vehicle car crash and discovered a deceased victim in one car and an obviously drunk driver alive in the second car. As hard as it was to render him the care he deserved, what made it worse was the fact that he was verbally abusive toward us. He seemed to have no regret for the tragedy he had created, and he mocked us as we struggled to extract him from his car and treat him.
Every ounce of my flesh was telling me to walk away and let him suffer like he deserved. But that wasn’t my job. My responsibility was to treat him—nothing more and nothing less. And honestly, if I was going to help him, I needed to listen to something other than my flesh. At the time I had just started to follow Jesus, and the only way I could do my job was to remind myself that I didn’t deserve the work Jesus did for me on the cross.
But Jesus gave His life for me, willingly. Filled with love.
Takeaway: Sometimes Jesus asks a lot of you, because He did a lot for you.
Prayer: Jesus, please keep me focused on who all of my neighbors are and help me to love them the way You love me.
This is an excerpt from Jesus is All We Need by Jason Sautel – a devotional now available for pre-order on DaySpring.com. Shop all books, journals, and devotions from DaySpring here.
