Most of us eat every day, some of us too much, because yesterday's
food is not enough to supply energy for today's needs. Why then, do
some of us expect yesterday's portion of heavenly manna, the word of God to
keep us through today's challenges. On this program, we are going to change
all of that. Let's experience God's words today and receive the power we need
to live healthy, vibrant lives. Welcome to your Daily Portion with your host,
author speaker, Elle David Harris. Good morning, good morning, Good
morning. It is Sabbath, November eleven, twenty twenty three. Hello,
my name is Elle David Harris. I am your host, and this is
your Daily Portion where we give you God's Word every single day, and today
is no exception. We are continuing in our Lesson study series. God's Mission,
My mission, and our caption for today is mission to my neighbor,
and I just want to underscore or my neighbor. We'll get into that in
just a moment, but first I'd like to say welcome and happy Sabbath to
everyone joining us and ask you, if you've not gone over to your Daily
Portion dot com, to please go ahead and do so right now to your
Daily Portion dot com. And please also put in that little box where you
are in the world so we can continue to grow in faith in fellowship.
And when you have an opportunity, please pick up the your Daily Portion book
again at your Daily Portion dot com. Let's go ahead and pray, and
then we will get underway. Father and Heaven. Thank you for giving us
this new day and for the privilege we have to pray. Please open up
our understanding, teach us who our neighbor is and how best to serve our
neighbor. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen and Amn again. I
suppose I preempted myself while I was praying because I knew where I was going,
but I didn't intend to talk about it right there. But yeah,
the big question is who is my neighbor? First, let's begin with Luke,
chapter ten and verse twenty seven. We'll circle back to that passage in
a moment, and the Bible reads 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.
And reality is when you hear something like this, Jesus was speaking.
We'll give some context. In a moment, you have to ask the obvious
question like who is my neighbor? And then some other questions regarding love and
so forth, who is my neighbor? And so the person that he was
speaking to we will see now as we pick up the story in verse twenty
five of Luke, chapter ten, and behold a certain lawyer. So he's
speaking. Jesus is speaking to a certain lawyer and tempted him, saying,
Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And if I'm not
mistaken, tomorrow we will deal with eternal life. And Jesus said, unto
him, what is written in the law, How readest thou? And he
said, thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all
thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said, unto him,
thou hast Us answered, right, this do, and thou shalt live
like I said, We're gonna deal with that in the coming days. But
he asked a question, it says here in verse twenty nine. And it
seems that the man was disingenuous, like he was not being really honest as
he was asking the question. But this is what he said. But he
willing to justify himself, said, unto Jesus, who is my neighbor?
Yeah, he's ready to give Jesus a resume, right, but he starts
with this, who is my neighbor? And Jesus answering said, a certain
man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among thieves, which stripped him
of his raiment and wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead. And
by chance there came down a certain priest that way, and when he saw
him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a levite,
when he was at that place, came and looked on him and passed by
on the other side. So these are people that were supposed to be people
of God. They were supposed to be holy. Like in air quotes,
these are individuals who decided based on their customs and understanding or misapplication of the
sanctuary and the law of Moses. They decided that this person who was wounded
was unclean, and therefore as an interruption, he would have been an interruption
to whatever they were doing. They decided to walk and leave him right where
he was boy, I wish I had the time, and verse thirty three.
The Bible continues, but a certain Samaritan see this individual, was seen
as also unclean like this person was seen as someone who was not of the
household of God by the people there. As he journeyed, he came where
he was and saw him. He had compassion on him, and went to
him and bound up his wounds, wait a minute, pouring in oil and
wine, and set him on his beast, meaning the man the Samaritan had
an animal, likely a donkey, And he set him on his beast,
and brought him to an inn and took care of him verse thirty five.
And on the morrow, when he departed, he took two pence and gave
to the host, and said to him take care of him. And whatsoever
thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay the And so
Jesus is showing in this situation that the one who was supposedly not clean,
like the one who was not a priest, was not a levite, one
who was not considered to be a part of the household of faith. Yes,
that individual actually showed holiness, showed deference, showed compassion, for the
man, and thus fulfilling the second and great commandment, which is to love
your neighbor as yourself. And that one was like unto the first, which
is to love God with everything we are. And so by serving his neighbor,
by serving the individual who was in need, he was showing love for
God and also love for humanity. How could you see somebody in that state
and just walk on by? Let me continue. And of course he by
the way, left payment, so that whatever that man or who was wounded
needed, that he would have been taken care of. Hmm. Verse thirty
six. Which now of these three thinkest thou was the neighbor of him that
fell among thieves. Remember, he was wounded, he was beaten, He
was in a terrible state, verse thirty seven. And he said, he
that showed mercy on him, then said Jesus unto him, go and do
like wise. He wanted to justify himself. That man wanted to justify himself.
He wanted to show that he was all of that in a bag of
chips, if you want to say. And Jesus exposed his reality, which
was, yeah, that he needed some more work. We all need more
work. But this man had to learn the lesson that even though there was
a man who was supposed to be a levite, there was a man who
was supposed to be a priests. Those individuals committed one of the worst sins
ever, which is in humanity toward humanity. And I know people say all
sin is the same, right sin, a sin, as we say here
in Jamaica. But the reality is that there are exactly levels to this.
There's no question like there are levels to this. There are some sins that
are of greater magnitude. This is why Jesus said, unto whom much is
given, much is to be required. So not every sin is of equal
magnitude. Murder is not the same. If you murder someone is not the
same as if you gossip, even though spiritually it's the same. In terms
of the impact and the outcome, the loss of life is of greater magnitude
because of what is left behind. I wish I had the time, but
the bottom line is that when we don't show mercy to someone, we are
indeed murdering them. What what if nobody took care of that man who fell
among thieves? You see? And so what God is saying to us is
if we have a mission to our neighbor. First of all, we need
to know who our neighbor is. Then, of course, with the love
for God and love for humanity, principles of the law, the Ten Commandments
law, when we go out on a mission to our neighbor, Now we
know we go on a mission with the one with the spirit of the one
who gave us this mission, which is Jesus Christ. Jesus identified with the
Samaritan and showed mercy where the priest the Levite didn't. Have a wonderful day.
Thanks for joining us listening. Friends, Always remember we cannot live by
bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
This has been your daily portion with El David Harris. Make it a great
day. Yeah,