If you want to love your neighbors like Jesus, it often doesn’t take great acts of kindness or huge sacrifices on your part, but simply being open to seeing what their needs are, and willing to help out when and where you can.
Loving People
I ran across a great statement in Kathy Escobar’s blog post “Dreamers, lovers, and status-quo rockers”:
I’d say that the most defining part of my faith–the center of what I believe–is the love of people & redemptive community. The way I connect with God is through relationship with people.
Even though Kathy’s statement does not describe our “agenda,” it describes our experience. We love people because we are followers of Jesus, but have discovered that in the loving we are connecting with God!
How does this happen? Perhaps some current real-life examples with some of our neighbors will help explain.
Plumber Needed
On the 4th of July, the morning after the block party, our phone rang not long after we got up. Our neighbor, a single woman, told us that her kitchen drains had backed up and her plumber wasn’t available on the holiday. She asked if I could look at the problem.
Half an hour later, I had determined that there was a blockage inside the wall. I needed a plumber’s snake and a plumbing fitting to fix the problem. One neighbor loaned me a snake, and another neighbor found the necessary fitting in his box of plumbing supplies. Three neighbors cooperated to provide tools, supplies, and labor to help a fourth neighbor!
Later that afternoon the woman whose drains now worked phoned us once again to thank us and to tell us about her conversation with her mother, an elderly lady who lives alone, about forty minutes from us. Our neighbor had told her mother about the block party, her neighbors and the cooperation of her neighbors in getting her drains unstopped that morning. Her mother told her that she (the mother) would like to have neighbors like that who she could call if she got in trouble (She has concerns about living alone).
Remodeler Extraordinaire
The following day, another neighbor, with whom we had become better acquainted while talking with him about the block party, saw us walking and invited us to see what he had done with his house. I owned one contracting business and managed another and am not easily impressed with remodels, but I was very impressed with his. He has made an extraordinary number of improvements to his home, many one-of-a-kind modifications. Without a doubt he is a borderline genius.
As we walked through his house, he told us his story, his achievements and some of the difficulties he has faced. He told us his dreams, dreams for his future, including business dreams. When we hear someone’s story we see the hand of God, where God has been working in their life and glimpses of His plan for their future.
Real Life with Real People
These stories may not be the dramatic stuff of famous books or sermons, but are the simple, yet beautiful stories of real life with people we know: our neighbors. They are stories of where we see God, in people we know, in our neighbors, in our neighborhood.
We have discovered that we connect with God when we connect with the people who cross our paths in the course of everyday life.
Do you have stories of experiencing connecting with God when you connected and formed relationships with other people? Share any that you might have in the comment section below!
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Are you one of the millions of people who have stopped “attending church” so that you can better follow Jesus into the world?
If you are one of the millions of people who are no longer attending church but who nevertheless have a vibrant and growing relationship with Jesus and have seen your relationships with other people grow in amazing ways, please share your experience below.
I have done some doozies in my life, but I barely knew the two people who were interviewing me, and there was no way I was going to share some of the worst things I have ever done!
Have you ever heard someone say that God cannot look upon sin? I have, and a reader recently sent in this question:
And if Jesus reveals God to us, then we can assume that God also likes to hang out with sinners and show love to the wicked. To say that God cannot look upon sin is to say that sin can defeat and defile God; that sin is more powerful than the righteous holiness of God! May it never be! God is not so weak and powerless!
My wife and I decided we would organize a Fourth of July block party. When we mentioned our plans to several of our neighbors, two couples offered to help us. Within a few days, additional neighbors began asking questions about the date, time and other details.
I told Jeremy I would report on the good, the bad and the ugly. To the best of our knowledge, there was no bad or ugly. Everyone got along. No one was left out. (My wife and I made sure that new people and shy people were introduced, included and seated with friendly people.) Yes, we do have a person on the street who has offended many neighbors. Several people took me to the side and asked “Was ______ invited?” I replied that (s)he was. They replied “Good!” and indicated that it was too bad the person chose not to attend.
So, for example, the word “saved” might refer to being delivered from one’s enemies, or getting healed from a sickness, or being rescued from drowning at sea. Obviously, these words are not related to gaining or keeping eternal life. I would guess that the majority of times the words saved, save, salvation, etc., are used in Scripture, they are used in this way (e.g., Matt 8:25; Acts 27:31).
Once you see the difference in Scripture between the word “saved” and the terms “eternal life” or “everlasting life” or even something like “justification” you begin to see that while there are numerous verses which talk about saving something that can be lost, there is not a single verse in the Bible which talks about losing eternal life, losing everlasting life, or losing our justification. All of these gifts of God, once given, are never revoked or taken back.
Even if you do not pray the way I have written above, 
