THE Good Samaritan

Sometime last year, I wrote a blog post on the Good Samaritan. It isn’t your typical takeaway on that story and that is why I LOVED writing the post. If you haven’t read it yet, go back to that post on the site and read it!

Anyway, when I was growing up, I’d always hear preachers and random people talk about this story and I had always thought to myself How am I supposed to be like the Good Samaritan?

In other words, at what point in my showing of kindness do I start acting like the Good Samaritan when I am trying to be like how he was?

How am I supposed to be that good?

So after I heard this sermon again when I was about 19 years old, I googled an article that told me how I could actually be like the Good Samaritan. It said that the Good Samaritan could’ve just showed kindness by helping the man with his wounds, but he showed love by not only doing that, but by taking him to the hotel and paying for his stay.

So after reading that, I’m sitting here and I’m like:

How am I supposed to know when I am showing love and when I am just showing kindness?????

Because I obviously want to show love AND kindness to people all the time.

Then, while I was counseling at church camp at age 20, I heard this completely different take on the parable that I had never heard before. Go read the blog post on this story! It is so worth it!

Here is the link to the post: https://afterhisheart1.wixsite.com/my-site/post/by-this-all-will-know

As I am listening to the sermon at church camp, I thought to myself:

 I am going to fail if I try to reach this standard of love and kindness in this story.

And this is exactly why we are not the Good Samaritan in the story. God is the Good Samaritan, and the story tells us exactly why we desperately need Him in our lives.

Our standard for goodness and love and kindness is nowhere near God’s standard for all those things. We will fail every time we try to reach those standards, but we serve a God whose goodness, love, and kindness never fails. And we have Him as a model for us while we aim to be more like Him.

"Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." (Ephesians 5:1-2).

Praise the Lord that He is our Good Samaritan.