Who is My Neighbor?

Why waste time discussing how we will know who our neighbor is? Just go and be “neighbor” to someone, to anyone, in need. Let the needy find his neighbor in you. Drop the talk. Cut the chatter. Take God's gifts of time, money, goods, talents, counsel, a listening ear, a helping hand . . . out there where someone can use them. To love your neighbor as yourself means simply to be a neighbor whenever and wherever you can (Lester DeKoster in The Deacons Handbook).

One cannot know beforehand whom he will meet. The immediate sight of a neighbor demands a spontaneous answer. One becomes a neighbor also to people outside one's group, nation, or race. In the encounter, the other becomes one's neighbor in the same way that one is his neighbor. The roles of participants in an encounter require modesty in both parties. Often one is inclined to think that his message is for the other, without thinking of the possibility that the other might have a message too (Kosuke Koyama in Waterbuffalo Theology).

The Good of Others

In The Spirit of the Disciplines Dallas Willard states that service is done for the “active promotion of the good of others.” [We] may also serve others to train ourselves away from arrogance, possessiveness, envy, resentment or covetousness. In that case service is undertaken as a discipline for the spiritual life. Service is the high road to freedom from bondage to other people . . . for we are acting unto God in our lowliest deeds (p.182).

Live the Cross Life

“The most radical teaching of Jesus was his total reversal of the contemporary notion of greatness. Leadership is found in becoming the servant of all. Power is discovered in submission. The foremost symbol of this radical servanthood is the cross. (He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on the cross, Phil. 2:8). But note this: Christ not only died a cross-death, he lived a cross-life. The way of the cross, the way of the suffering servant, was essential to his ministry. Jesus lived the cross life in submission to his fellow human beings. He lived the cross-life in total submission to the will of the Father. Jesus’ life was the cross-life of submission and service. Jesus' death was the cross-death of conquest by suffering.” (Richard Foster in Celebration of Discipline)