How Well Do You Know Your Neighbor?

9 posted on June 9, 2009

POSTED IN: Blog Posts, Makes You Think, Videos

Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Pharisees of the day asked, “Ok, Jesus, can you clarify that a little? Who exactly is our neighbor and how much do we have to love them?”

In Jesus’ time the lines between the “haves” and the “have-nots” were much clearer. The spiritually chosen few wore long robes and tassles to signify their status with God while the prostitutes and tax collectors were well known and looked down upon.

Today, things are a little less clear and far more complicated as we still ask, Who is our neighbor? Let’s take a look:

One out of every three women you interact with will have had an abortion (1)
One (or even two) out of six women you talk to will have been sexually molested (2)
More than six out of ten people you speak with will think living together before marriage is the wisest way to prevent divorce, and five out of ten will already have lived with someone (3)
Most will have been sexually active, and the thought of waiting until marriage will sound totally foreign and will need explaining
Most men will have struggled with pornography or serious problems with lust (4)
One in five to ten people will struggle with substance abuse (5)
At least one in five and as high as two out of five will smoke (6)

These are our neighbors. These are the people that Christ came to seek and to save. On the outside they may disguise themselves as lawyers, construction workers, nurses, or teachers. They come from the “bad” as well as the “good” parts of town. They live right next to us. They go to our kids’ school.

How well do you know them?

More importantly, once you do know who they are, can you lovingly accept them “as is” and offer love, hope and healing as Jesus did to “go and sin no more?”

How well do you really know your neighbor? How well do you love them?

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 11:12 am and is filed under Blog Posts, Makes You Think, Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

9 Comments

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June 9, 2009

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1 Greg Qualls said:

I have to say this is one of the things I’ve been convicted of the most lately. We’ve lived in our new house since Dec. and have only gotten to know one of our neighbors. I truly feel Jesus brought us to this neighborhood for reason, and we really have dropped the ball.

On a side note, the one neighbor I do know is one of the leaders in the largest biker gang in ABQ.

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2 Brad Ruggles said:

@Greg – Sounds like you’ve got a biker you need to hang out with!
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June 9, 2009

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3 Laura Carney said:

We have many sneaking suspicions about our neighbors across the street, even though we think we know them pretty well…

Great post; a good reminder that nothing is random and we are put in close proximity to the very ones we are meant to love and build relationship with…

Laura Carney’s last blog post..How To Enjoy A Trip To Florida When You Are 2 1/2…
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4 BJ said:

Laura,

You should call the cops on your neighbors….I wouldn’t trust them…

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5 Nick said:

I used to know all my neighbours really well but now I have moved to a different town and its been harder.

On one side we have an enclosed community next to us and its very tight security, the only thing I see of them is their guests keep parking on our nature strip and they keep flicking cigarette butts over the fence.

On the other side we are just starting to know our neighbours. They just moved in… the previous neighbour was a 45 year old single mum and we tried to form relationship with her and her daughter but she kept coming and knocking on the door for things when she knew my wife was out or at strange times of the night. She would tell her 5 year old daughter to sneak in the back door so she had an excuse to look for her. In the end it was weird and we needed to tell her to back off a bit.

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6 themisfit said:

we are just in the process of getting to know our neighbors after moving into a new home. it can be daunting, but it is well worth it.

neighbors aren’t just the people that live beside you, but they are the “people that you meet, walking down the street.” That homeless guy downtown, is your neighbor.

great post

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June 10, 2009

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7 Jason Ruggles said:

Great thoughts, Brad! The easiest thing to do is to not interact with strangers… we’ve been raised that way to an extent (“Don’t talk to strangers!”).

We need to constantly be getting out of our comfort zone to interact, befriend, and show love and respect.

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8 sexrev.org» Blog Archive » Videos, Links, and Randomnity…it’s the WWW. said:

[...] How Well Do You Know Your Neighbor? Watch the video, read the facts. [...]
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June 11, 2009

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9 Pokinatcha said:

I love my neighbors! Most of us go to the same church and we serve on the worship team together. We’ve lived on the same cul de sac for 8 yrs.

I know I should venture up the street more, but it’s like another world! So, I leave it up to my 14 yr old to get to know everyone. She has that personality of a stranger is just a friend she hasn’t met yet.

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