Yesterday, we looked at the call to love our neighbors. One reality that the book engages is the need to focus in on our neighbors rather than having a scattered view of them.
If we say, “Everyone is my neighbor,” it can become an excuse for avoiding the implications of following the Great Commandment. Our “neighbors” become defined in the broadest of terms. They’re the people across town, the people who are helped by the organizations that receive our donations, the people whom the government helps. We don’t have to feel guilty, we tell ourselves. After all, we can’t be expected to really love everybody, can we? The problem is, however, that when we aim for everything, we hit nothing. So when we insist we’re neighbors with everybody, often we end up being neighbors with nobody. That’s our human nature. We become like the lawyer looking for a loophole. We tell ourselves that we’ve got a lot going on in our lives, so surely the Great Commandment applies only to the wounded enemy lying beside the road, doesn’t it? Since we haven’t come across many of those lately, surely we’re doing just fine when it comes to loving our neighbors.
We created this worksheet to help our church be more intentional. Hope it helps.
