Luke 10

The verse that we will focus on today from Luke 10 is very well known...

²⁷ And he answered, “You shall 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 your neighbor as yourself.”

BUT ... Who IS my neighbor?? And what does that mean to me?

Instead of trying to answer this myself, I give you an exerpt from the book, The Art of Neighboring: Building Genuine Relationships Right Outside Your Door by Jay Pathak.

“What if the solution to our society’s biggest issues has been right under our noses for the past two thousand years? When Jesus was asked to reduce everything in the Bible into one command he said: Love God with everything you have and love your neighbor as yourself. What if he meant that we should love our actual neighbors? You know, the people who live right next door.

The problem is that we have turned this simple idea into a nice saying. We put it on bumper stickers and t-shirts and go on with our lives without actually putting it into practice. But the fact is, Jesus has given us a practical plan that we can actually put into practice, a plan that has the potential to change the world. The reality is though, that the majority of Christians don’t even know the names of most of their neighbors.

What if things could be different, though? What if we took the time to get to know the people next to us and discovered that they aren’t so menacing after all? Perhaps we’d find that the people on our block are normal people just like us. They go to work, hang out with their kids, and put their pants on one leg at a time. At the end of the day, they long for a place to be accepted and cared for. They want to do something significant with their lives, something that really matters. What good things might happen if you truly got to know the people in our neighborhoods and they got to know you?”

I encourage you to start questioning what Jesus ACTUALLY wants you to do in your neighborhood. He doesn’t call us to just have good ideas or nice thoughts. He calls us to action! Let's get busy.

Jeanene Hill |Office Manager

Jeanene and her husband Lester moved to Hutto in 2005. They have three children: Jacob, Dylan & Adam. As a teenager, Jeanene accepted Christ and committed to seeking a life that honors Him. She has spent many years working in the pregnancy resource and childcare fields. Currently Jeanene works as the Office Manager and volunteers as the Children’s Ministry Director. Contact Jeanene Hill: [email protected]