In the Gospel of Luke...Jesus is explaining to the lawyer the the greatest commandment is the Love God and right behind that is to love your neighbor. When pressed who your neighbor is ...Jesus tels the story of the Good Samaritan. I always read the Parable of the Good Samaritan and thought of the mercy and compassion of the Samaritan and how he truly fulfilled the commandment of "loving his neighbor" as he tended to the injured victim of a robbery.
But in re-reading the account in Matthew ...Jesus asks the lawyer to tell Him who his neighbor was...and the lawyer responded that the Samaritan was the "Good Neighbor" because he showed mercy to the helpless. Now that puts a different light on who "my neighbor" really is. Not the helpless and injured on the side of the road (whom we certainly should help anyway we can) but rather the people in my life that show me forgiveness, compassion and mercy. Those folks I need to appreciate more and love them ...even if they are a "Samaritan" and not of my skin color, financial status ( higher or lower) or religious denomination.
How about the guy on the side of the road? Are we commanded to love them? Sure ....Jesus tells us that when we helped the least, we helped Jesus Himself. In addition Jesus tells us that we should not only love God #1 and then our Neighbor ( those that show us mercy as Jesus does )#2 that #3 we should also love your enemies and those that seek to harm and persecute us. That just about covers everyone and everything. The Almighty, the gracious, the least and your enemies.
Is there anything to hate? Jesus tells us we should hate anything that stands in the way between us and Him....From our family, our love for financial success,and all the things of this world that tempt us into seperation from our Lord.
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