We often think of Jesus’s Parable Of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37) as a story about what it means to be a neighbor.

But in it’s complete context, Jesus teaches that being a neighbor is about loving and He uses the Parable of The Good Samaritan to give us an example of what love practically looks like.

The Samaritan did not give the man on the side of the road 5 dollars, he didn’t take him a plate of food and then left, he had compassion (Luke 10:33 σπλαγχνίζομαι – moved to a place centered in love), he loved the man as himself, and attended to the man, made provision for the man at his own expense until the man was well (Luke 10:34-35).

He entered into a relationship with this man, and continued in it as his keeper (Genesis 4:9).

I often see the need and say, “But, Lord, there are so many, the need is so great. I can’t possibly meet the need of so many.”

The problem is not the scale of the need (Matthew 14:16, Mark 6:37, Luke 9:13), but the distance of my heart from a place of love, therefore my lacking compassion, and my using the scale of the problem as an excuse to pass them by and leave them where they are (Luke 10:31-32).

My problem is I want to get back to my life –to my treasure, where my heart is also (Luke 12:34, 1 John 3:17).

But, there is no other life (John 14:6, Luke 12:15).

Life is receiving the love of Father through His Son and in like manner loving God back through loving the family of God and seeking to grow it by loving my neighbor (1 John 3:14-16).

The life I want to get back to; being successful in business, buying nice things, enjoying myself and being approved by men, is all a deception (1 John 2:16), and it is hindering me from living the true life, enjoying the true riches and being approved by God.

This isn’t just about the materially homeless and downcast. It is also about the spiritually homeless and downcast that I encounter every day at home, at work, in the course of daily activity.

They need care that Jesus has given us the capacity to give.

I repent Lord. Help me to comprehend the width, depth and height of Your love so that I may love as You love (Ephesians 3:14-19).

Enter in.

Continue.

Love until those Christ died for and now live for are well.

#perfectourlove

Photo Courtesy of Ben Lockett – Flickr

There are many people who know the Bible well but don’t know our Lord at all.

That’s a trap that is easy to fall into, especially when we make the Bible like the bronze serpent that was given to lift people’s eyes upward to the Source of their salvation (Numbers 21:5-9), a foreshadowing of Christ (John 3:14), but instead they made it into an idol (2 Kings 18:4).

The Bible is like the frame to an interdimensional portal. Even though it’s beautifully constructed, its primary value is not its physical attributes –the words on the pages, but the bridge to another dimension that it facilitates.

From before time, the Father has purposed to establish means for you to be with Him (Matthew 25:34).

God is spirit (John 4:24), intangible, and imperceptible (unless He reveals Himself, we cannot reach or know Him) and His Word is among the first means He uses to make Himself known in a physical world, in a tangible, perceptible way (that we can grasp with our senses) through the expression of His Word in the Holy Scriptures recorded in our Bible.

The Bible is not the end.
The Bible is the means to the end.
Yet, what God reveals as recorded in Scripture is vital and we cannot arrive at the end without it.

There are many doors (ideas, philosophies, religions, lifestyles, paths etc.) but there is only One that leads to life and without the benefit of what God has already revealed as recorded in Holy Scripture, you will not see it properly and will miss it.

The Bible is vital.
But, the Bible is not the end.
The Bible is the means to the end.

The Bible is the frame to the portal.

Jesus is the door (and the bridge aka The Way).

The Father and His Kingdom is the end.

We’re not getting anywhere without the Door. So, the Door is the principal thing.

To those who have been granted ears to hear, eyes to see and approach the frame (Bible) in faith, the Door will appear.

Blessed are those who can see the Door! It is a marvelous, glorious thing to see the Door!

But we must still enter in.

Receive what the invisible God made visible through the Holy Spirit so you could perceive Him –which is the frame, Scripture, which points to the Door, Jesus Christ.

ASK, humbling yourself, confessing your deafness and blindness and He will give you ears to hear and eyes to see.
SEEK, searching diligently, believing God is and the Door will appear.
KNOCK, believing what God has revealed through Scripture and in these last days what He has spoken to us by His Son who came to us in the flesh, and the Door will be opened to you.

Don’t just stand at the Door.

Don’t be like the hypocrites who

stand outside pontificating about the frame,
won’t go in themselves and won’t allow others to,
striving about words,
straining a gnat and swallowing a camel,
always learning but never coming to the knowledge of the truth,
putting on shows based on their fleshly interpretation of the frame,
having a form of godliness but denying its power,
flattering ourselves with vain, empty, self-serving practices of legalism.

Don’t just stand at the Door.

Enter in.

But we can’t take anything with us.

I have to leave my identity behind.

I have to leave my pursuits behind.

I have to leave my possessions behind.

I have to trust Him for everything.

As we enter in, The Way transfigures us because no flesh can enter the Kingdom of God.

As we continue, The Way becomes narrower and narrower, forcing us to put things down and take things off, until all that can pass is a pure heart and spirit before God.

Believe.
See the Door.
Enter in.

When we enter in:

stepping out on what He reveals,
continuing along The Way in obedience,
allowing Him to conform us to the image of His dear Son,
yielding everything in our lives that is not like Him for Him to cut away,
exposing ourselves to the light, confessing sin and allowing Him to cleanse us from sin;

God becomes real to us. God is spirit so the manifestation of His reality is spiritual. There is a knowing. His Spirit bears witness with our spirit confirming that we are His (Romans 4:16-17, Galatians 6-7).

What is the evidence? How do I know that it has happened?

Love. (1 John 4:12)

You will love as He defines it. It is unmistakable and unlike anything on earth (John 13:35).

I have not attained. I know only in part. I have much growing to do. So, I press.

Join me.

Don’t just know the Bible, know God.

Enter in.

Know God.

Love.

#PerfectOurLove