Today’s 333 Devotional: “Love God’s Style”

In our parable this Sunday, “Love God’s Style,” or what is called “The Good Samaritan,” we’ll be looking at the issue and Jesus’s answer to the question, “What is our reaction when confronted with people who are in need?”

The main point of this parable is that God’s heart is for those in need. Thus, the title “Love God’s Style” means that God’s style of love will find ways to meet those in need. Love God’s Style is displayed for the world to see in how we meet and treat those who are in need, those God places in our path.

As powerful as this lesson is, it was probably even more powerful in Jesus’s day, especially as the story unfolded and in Jesus’s parting words, “Go and do likewise.”

But what really shocked the audience was the hero of the story. I wasn’t a Jew, but rather someone the Jews despised, a Samaritan, the last person in the world such a poor and needy Jew could or had the right to expect mercy from.

So the power of the parable lies not only in identifying who our neighbor is, but also in showing how to be a neighbor. Jesus reveals several actions we must take to love our neighbor as ourselves, along with the actions we must take toward those in need whom God puts in our path.

First, we must be willing to risk inconvenience, which in those days meant the inconvenience of contamination, being outside our comfort zone, and an interrupted schedule.

Next, there must be a willingness to risk personal safety, which involves reaching out and refusing to avoid others in need.

There must also be a willingness to ignore social barriers set up by the culture and society we live in and to act on what we say we believe.

Therefore, love God’s style regards these interruptions as divine opportunities.