On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus answered the question with a question, “What is written in the Law?”

He answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind,” and, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

In response, Jesus gives the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus identifies our neighbor as someone who is the most ethnically, culturally, and linguistically distant from us. We were once that fallen person on whom the Lord had compassion. We are to gaze on others and act with the same intensity of love.

We can be sure that Jesus is not excusing us from loving our immediate neighbor, but it does expand our thinking of “neighbor” when He says we are to minister to the culturally different. We are to show mercy to the ones that are ethnically different. We are to go and give sponsorship to the stranger in our midst that might not even speak our language.

We are to follow the example of the Good Samaritan. Think cross-culturally and “Go and do likewise.” This is our assignment. It is the agenda the Lord has handed to you and to me. Take the next step on that assignment. Register and login at missionnext.org