“Who needs me today? What do I have to contribute?” (Bobbie L. Oscarson)
30 Jesus replied with an illustration: “A
Jew going on a trip from Jerusalem to Jericho was attacked by bandits. They
stripped him of his clothes and money, and beat him up and left him lying half
dead beside the road. 31 “By chance
a Jewish priest came along; and when he saw the man lying there, he crossed to
the other side of the road and passed him by. 32 A Jewish
Temple-assistant [Levite] walked
over and looked at him lying there, but then went on.
33 “But
a despised Samaritan came
along, and when he saw him, he felt deep pity. 34 Kneeling beside
him the Samaritan soothed his wounds with medicine and bandaged them. Then he
put the man on his donkey and walked along beside him till they came to an inn,
where he nursed him through the night. 35 The
next day he handed the innkeeper two twenty-dollar bills and told him to take care of the
man. ‘If his bill runs higher than that,’ he said, ‘I’ll pay the difference the
next time I am here.’
36 “Now
which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the bandits’ victim?”
37 The man replied, “The one who showed him some pity.”
Then Jesus said, “Yes,
now go and do the same.”
We can reach those who
are different from us by showing them God’s mercy and grace. This point is best
illustrated through the Parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10:30-37, TLB
(above).
A. You should allow yourself
to feel compassion (your heart to break)
for someone different from you that needs help. (See Luke 10:33 above)
B. Then move toward them,
and care for their need to the best of your ability-up close and personal. (See Luke 10:34 above)
C. You
must show them love in an extreme way, which will allow emotional barriers to
come down. (See
Luke 10:35 above)
So here’s what I want
you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping,
eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an
offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even
thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside
out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of
immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in
you. (Romans 12:1-2, MSG)
Every person in the world is your neighbor; if they matter to God they
should matter to you.
Your
own personal testimony of how God changed your life is the most effective to
minister to others of Jesus.[i]
[i] Inspired
by the sermon “Go to Your Community: Go” (installment three) Sunday November
1, 2020, Pastor Dave Jansen (CPG). All CenterPoint churches are open
in-person at 10am. They will continue to meet online at
facebook.com/centerpointchurches or centerpointchurches.com/live.
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