Love Thy Neighbor: Christmas Outreach 2020

A Brief Look At Love

"I love mankind," he said, "but I am amazed at myself: the more I love mankind in general, the less I love people in particular, that is, individually, as separate persons... I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with everyone watching. Indeed, it will go as far as the giving of one’s own life, provided it does not take too long but is soon over, as on stage, and everyone is looking on and praising. Whereas active love is labor and perseverance, and for some people, perhaps, a whole science." - From Fyodor Dostoevsky’s "The Brothers Karamazov"

Loving our neighbor has become one of the many overused catch-phrases of 2020. In the midst of this "pandemic" the sole source of actions prescribed to us by the government and society is the love for one's neighbor. Stay home. Wear a mask. Social distance. Shutdown your business and lose your livelihood. All for the love of your neighbor. The quote shared above does such a great job encompassing the kind of love we see rampant on our social media feeds, in line at the grocery store, and walking past all the closed businesses in our neighborhoods. It's a love geared towards this elusive idea of mankind as a whole. A love that only requires from you a mindless, public, and outward display with no true thought or concern for your neighbors as individuals. We're comfortable with the idea of loving humanity but our discomfort and lack of effort shows when we're called to love individual humans.

But what kind of love for neighbor does God call us to?
First, we know that loving our neighbor shows our love for God and that "we love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19). Our exercise of love is a product of God's love. In order to love our neighbor properly, we must know God, follow His commands, and obey His laws. Without a proper understanding of God's love we will not know how to properly love our neighbor. Throughout God's word we also see that God's love is not only an over arching love for humanity but a personal love as well. He created humanity out of love, not need. He gave the world His only begotten Son, a Redeemer, out of love...not duty. But He also loves the person. He knows every hair on each head. He calls us to cast upon Him all our daily cares and anxieties. He fashioned each of us in the wombs of our mothers. We weren't just thrown together in a mechanical way. The Masterful Creator of the universe and all therein fashioned each of us. To fashion something means to make something using your hands. AH-MAZING!! We shouldn't only view loving our neighbor in a generalized "I love all of mankind" sense but in the sense that our Lord hand-crafted this individual and all the hills and valleys they will experience in their life. God cares about the individual and so should we.

One final thought on this subject and I'll move on... I want you to recall the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). The perfect story that shows us what it means to be a neighbor and how we are to actively love one another. The priest and the Levite passed the beaten, half-dead man on the road and seemingly went about their day unaffected. But I wonder what they may have been thinking to themselves as they crossed the road to avoid the man in need. If it was anything like what I'm seeing today they may have had thoughts like... "Such a shame. This is why we need to love our neighbor and advocate for safer neighborhoods." "This is why it's so important for us to do our part in loving our neighbor and not steal." "We should all wear "do not steal" and "love thy neighbor" patches on our cloaks so that others know that we do not condone what happened to this man!" "I'm going to jot this down on some parchment when I get home and had it out to all my friends with the hashtags #justiceforthemanrobbedontheroad #dontrobyourneighbor... we'll start a whole movement!" All while the man continued to lay there fighting for his life. 

But the good Samaritan came alongside the man in need. He did not cross the street to avoid him but the Bible says, he "came where the man was." He stopped his travels and took the time to dress and bandage the man's wounds. The unlikely hero put the man on his own donkey, inconveniencing himself, and took the man to an inn to be nursed at the Samaritan's own expense. The Good Samaritan loved his neighbor as an individual. He met the man where he was and actively loved him. Not just this elusive idea of love for all mankind. I think there is so much for us to learn here and apply in our day to day interaction with our neighbors and how we endeavor to love them.

Your Neighborhood. Your Mission Field. 

Actively loving our neighbors, both those who live near and far, is not easy. As a person who is pretty introverted (and sinful), I get it. I like my alone time and not having the anxiety that sometimes comes when interacting with others. I enjoy not being "imposed" upon, and the less people you interact with, the less likely you are to be imposed upon! So selfish...I know. I'm so much more like the priest and Levite, crossing the street to avoid my neighbor, rather than meeting them where they are and seeing how I can be of use.

And what exactly is the greatest need of our neighbors? They may have money trouble, health issues, family drama, and a plethora of other needs that come from being in this fallen world. But the greatest need is their need for a Savior. A need to be redeemed and made right with the God of all creation because "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23), and "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23). Without Christ, our neighbors are sentenced to eternity in hell. Although they may have many physical earthly needs (which we should definitely endeavor to assist in any way we can), those needs are temporal and temporary. The spirit is eternal and so their spiritually well-being and standing before God far exceeds any other need.

In Matthew 28, Christ gives us the great commission and calls us to make disciples of all the nations through the proclaiming and spreading of the gospel. I use to believe that this command only meant for Christians to become foreign missionaries and bring the good news of Jesus Christ to far away lands that opposed the gospel. But what a mission field we have before us in our own neighborhoods! Our neighbors are literally within a few feet of us, living and doing life in this fallen world, experiencing all the effects of the curse, and may not know about the freedom they can find in Christ. We have a mission field right outside our door.

If we desire to care for and love our neighbors, I think it's important to get to know them. Not just so we can start throwing random excerpts of scripture at them, but so we can do life with them in a way that encourages the sharing of burdens and triumphs. To be like Paul was in Athens, establishing rapport with the Greeks and using the things he saw among them to turn their attention to Christ. We can do the same with our neighbors, meeting them where they are in life, sharing the truth of Christ in a way they can understand, and identifying their earthly needs in light of their spiritual ones.

In today's day and age it is so hard to get to know new people. Everyone is connected via social media and so disconnected and disengaged with people in real life. I find that Christmas time, the time where everyone is in the spirit of giving, is a great place to start. This year I handed out tins of homemade treats and Christmas cards to many in our neighborhood. I got the beautiful tins from Dollar Tree of all places, as well as the greeting cards (a pack of 12 for $1!!) and found 3 very simple but yummy recipes to bless them with.

I did a classic sugar cookie recipe that you can find here. This was my first time making fudge and this simple classic recipe for Fantasy Fudge was amazing. And the stunner was this recipe for chewy molasses-ginger cookies from Southern Living.

In the cards I wrote a message wishing them a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I touched on the crazy year we've had in 2020 but how there is so much to be thankful for and hope to be found. I expressed our desire to get to know them better as well. I also included this wonderful gospel tract, which I taped to the inside of the card and titled it "A Little Message About the True Gift of Christmas." If you decide to use these be sure to print on both sides and then you'll be able to do a trifold and create a little pamphlet. Such a simple way to share the gospel and make known your trust in Christ on a base level.

It's so easy to fall into the trap of calling love what the world calls love, and in turn, loving our neighbor how the world says we love our neighbor. But the world hates God and is in rebellion against Him. They do not love as God loves and therefore their form of love is actually hate. They prioritize needs like health, wealth, and (as we saw this year) safety, over more important spiritual needs. They prioritize the whole and ignore the individual. But let us love as God loves. Let us endeavor to be Christ to our neighbors. Not as a lord and savior, but as a representative of Christ extending His mercy and ministry into their lives. Until next time, Happy Evangelizing! 

xo

Janine