Who's My Neighbor?

One of my biggest pet peeves is to be honked at or gestured at by other drivers on the road. Recently, while I was driving through the Walmart parking lot, I was honked at and shaken a fist at by two different people. Now I am NOT that bad of a driver and am very cautious especially driving through parking areas. So what was the deal??

It seems that people are becoming very impatient and not using good manners and being kind to on another. This has gotten me to thinking about the Bible commanding us to love our neighbor, and how we go about doing that.

First of all, who is our neighbor? In Luke 10:30-37, Jesus addresses this question through His parable of the Good Samaritan. We see through Jesus' teachings that being a "neighbor" had nothing to do with living in close proximity, having commonality in nationality, gender, vocation or any other factor. Very simply, our neighbors are those people we are in contact with, whether in our home, in our community, in our work place, on the city streets or on country roads, etc.

The next question is, how do we love our neighbor? Once again, we go to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. God's word tells us that love is patient, kind, does not envy, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, trusts, hopes, and perseveres. We are to live out our love through demonstrating these types of behaviors or using good "manners".

So, long story short, we as believers are to love our neighbors (anyone we come in contact with in any circumstances) by being patient, kind, etc. As we walk through our day today, I also encourage you to put great effort into loving your neighbor, even when they pull out in front of you on the road (use your breaks), but in front of you in the grocery line, honk their horn at you or shake their fist at you or respond to you in other harsh or rude ways.

It is very apparent from scripture that God does expect us as believers to use good manners and ti love our neighbors. We should not expect nonbelievers to live out this directive to love their neighbors, but we should expect all believers to love their neighbors in this way for this is what we are commanded by our Lord Jesus to do. We please and honor God when we faithfully demonstrate love to our our neighbors in this lost world.