The story of the good Samaritan in Luke 10:25 is a call to show kindness and mercy to one another, even in the most extreme situations. Bible stories and the words of the Lord guide us through our daily lives. Through the Holy Spirit, the Lord grants us strength to endure all things and express empathy to others undergoing trials.
The good Samaritan
As Jesus was teaching one day, a lawyer asked Him how to receive eternal life. Jesus responded with a question: “What is the written law?”
The lawyer answered, “You shall love the Lord with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself” [Luke 10:27 ESV].
But the lawyer needed to make sure he knew exactly who he was responsible to love. So he asked Jesus a second question: “Who is my neighbor?”
Jesus responded with the story of the Good Samaritan. A man traveling to Jericho was attacked by robbers. The robbers stripped and beat him, leaving him barely alive on the side of the road. A priest, considered a highly righteous person in Jewish religion, walked by and saw the man in desperate need of help. Instead of stopping, he stepped to the other side of the path and left the man there. Shortly afterward, a Levite, another person of high esteem in Jewish religion, came along and also ignored the injured man.
But when a Samaritan, considered an outcast by the Jews, walked by, he immediately stopped to help. He treated the injured man’s wounds, bandaged them, and took him to an innkeeper. There he paid the innkeeper with his own money to house the hurt man. He promised to check in on the man when he returned and pay any additional costs.
The true neighbor wasn’t either of the two respected Jewish religious leaders who passed by. The true neighbor was the Samaritan, who stopped to help the very type of person who despised him and instead showed love, compassion, and generosity.
Love the Lord with all your heart
We’re each handcrafted by God to serve a specific purpose in sharing His light with others, living out this story of the good Samaritan in our own ways. As Romans 12:6 [ESV] says, “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them.” The Lord encourages us to practice our God-given strengths and to share our compassion among our daily lives.
Our faithfulness allows us to display empathy to others through prayer and words of encouragement. God’s presence gives us the power to lift spirits and help others discover spiritual peace. At CHM, our responsibility as a ministry and followers of Christ is to support the people around us as we reflect the spiritual values outlined in Galatians 6:2.
We fulfill the law of Christ as we continue to bear the burdens of others spiritually, financially, and emotionally in our daily lives.
