Who is thy neighbor?
I recently started taking a class that my church offered called, “Love Thy Neighbor”. I didn’t know 100% what to expect. I don’t think I understood how important sharing God’s love is until I really learned what was on the line. People sometimes say, ‘it’s like if you had the cure to cancer and didn’t share.’ But I don’t think that description does this justice. Cancer is scary, terrifying really. I watched this unknown disease take my grandma from me slowly and violently. It took every part of her being and personality. But as hard as this is for me to say, what cancer did to her pales in comparison to what this life and the next looks like without God.
It is easy for me to say that the polite man in the coffee shop, the kind lady in the library, and the sweet little boy in my neighborhood are my neighbors. But to look around and say, the drunk driver, the school shooter, and the politician on the opposing side are my neighbor, becomes very hard. How could God expect me or even ask me to love them? How could a God, who is just and merciful and loving, want me to see someone like that and share the good news with them? Probably because I serve a God that is just and merciful and loving. My God is full of grace. I think I am worth saving, I even consider certain strangers worthy of God’s grace. Honestly that is the stupidest thing I can think, “my God, the creator of the universe and the ocean and sunflowers needs me, a sinful creature, to tell Him who is worthy of saving.” I can be a rather dense and foolish person.
But how do I get past this, how do I leave my human ideas outside, and go love my neighbor where they are at? This class that I’m taking did open my eyes to the fact that I am a harsh and solid deterrent for getting to know God, and all of His love and gracious tendencies. But this class also showed me that I am the perfect poster child of what God can save just as is anyone else. This class taught me to pay attention, to ask questions, and to really focus on God’s unwavering glory and grace. I started to pay attention to beauty in everything, including people, (even people that used to drive me up a wall). I started realizing that I am not here to win arguments or to please people. There needs to be a balance, I am really good at pretending can love people into the kingdom of God, and I am terrified that God’s truth is too harsh. But if I never show people the truth of my God’s love and the reality of humanity, then I am failing at loving. Sometimes the truth hurts, but the truth is always the best option, but the manor of how the truth is stated holds a lot of weight as well. Every time I think of someone sharing the gospel, I think about the one time I went to the Rose Parade. A man armed with a sign that had “REPENT OR YOU WILL BURN IN HELL!” in big gold letters. He accompanied his sign with unrelenting screams, “YOU ARE ALL SINNERS! YOU ARE GOING TO HELL”. Now that man’s sign and his words are true, and I believe that, yet I still wanted nothing to do with what he was selling. So how do I get my message of urgency across to others in a way that is loving and peaceful? Well, before this class I was not sure how to answer that. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. If I was asked why I say I am a Christian, or why I say and believe Jesus Christ died for me?
1 Peter 3:15-16 says
but in your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy, ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. 16 Yet do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that when you are accused, those who disparage your good conduct in Christ will be put to shame.
This verse tells us to be ready, tells us to be prepared because someone is going to ask. But in verse 16, we are told to do this with gentleness and respect. With resect, meaning the face in front of you is a human, a person, someone with things to lose, things they fear, with questions of their own, lives of their own.
Towards the end of the class we had an “encounter” with someone who didn’t share our same beliefs. I spent weeks pouring over my notes, trying to prepare an argument against what the other side of the conversation believed. I was ready to slaughter them. I would have leading questions that would make them question their own existence along with the validity of their beliefs. As the class progressed, I started to realize I was missing the point, sure I can disprove their beliefs in less than 20 minuets. I can point out discrepancies, and false doctrine, but what good will that do if I can’t show them God’s love and redemptive nature. If I don’t show them I care about them more than I care about winning the argument then I am missing the point in a big way. When I first heard about the encounter at the end of this class, the conversation started to look like, in my mind, two gladiators fighting to the death instead of two civilized people caring about one another’s future, and one another’s heart. I should let the person sitting across from me know that the point of this conversation in not to add another tally mark on my “converted” list.
I do want to be clear; I am not looking to be persuaded into another religion. I have done an extensive amount of research and question asking. I have explored what I believe, and I know what the truth is. This conversation will not be one where my heart hangs in the balance.
So, through this class it took me eight weeks to learn that pummeling them into the ground with questions and a clipped tone to my voice, was not my purpose. Here is my purpose.
My name is Ashley Shrader, I am 19 years old. I know that Jesus Christ the one and only son of God, born of a virgin, died for my sins on the cross. He defeated death and rose form the grave three days later. God created the universe and everything in it from nothing but His spoken word. God is eternal and three persons in one, now and forever. The God of the Bible is the only true God. I am His creation, through disobedience, and failing every day I rip myself away from God and His never-ending love. But due to His grace and mercy, He offers forgiveness and a closeness to Him, even for a sinful creature such as myself. I have openly confessed my love and devotion and am blessed by the opportunity to serve the God of the universe every day. And I know that when I die, I will spend the rest of eternity in His presence and worshipping God in heaven. My God didn’t give up on me when I deserve abandonment daily and for that I am forever grateful.
So that I show I will love my neighbor. No, it is not the perfect plan, but that’s two be expected. This conversation will involve two imperfect people. I am positive I will have a conversation that involves questions I can’t answer. I am aware that this will be hard, but I have hope. Hope in a God that can never fail me.
By Grace Alone 