Neighbor.... one living or located near. Reading through the Bible looking for references regarding "Neighbor" brought up the words found in this verse over and over. It's referred to in Matthew 22:39 as "the Second Greatest Commandment". Love your neighbor as yourself. The "First Greatest Commandment" is usually listed with it, and makes up the first part of the verse I used with my picture, above:
" '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' "
Luke 10:27
When the Expert in the Law (who was speaking the above passage) asked Jesus who his neighbor was, Jesus answered him with the story of the Good Samaritan. I love that story (you can read it in verses 30-37) and have GREAT memories of my father telling it over and over again when he used to give tours at a "replica" of the Holy Land in Virginia. Pretty ironic, since in his "retirement", he gives tours in the REAL Holy Land!!
The picture is of the back of the house of my All-Time Favorite Neighbor. Love these people. Loved it when my parents bought the lot in the woods behind their house and built a house for US to live in, when I was 16. Their daughter was my Best Friend BEFORE we even moved behind them, so you can imagine how very happy I was to get to be so close to her! (HI SUE!!!!!!) I love this picture the most because it shows the view I had everytime I snuck through the treeline, to Sue's back door. (Our house was to the right of the big tree in the right of the picture) My favorite memory of Sue being my neighbor would be the time she was hanging out at my house and then went home and called me 10 minutes later to tell me she forgot her car:)
Even though the image in my picture shows my LITERAL neighbor, Jesus it telling us that the neighbor He's talking about is everyone around us... show them mercy (v37) and love them like you love yourself.
4 comments:
Your use of a photo for this is great.
So... at first I was like "whose house is that?"... It looks so much bigger now. Anyway, once I got past the trauma of one Miss Tracy racing over to tell me a tree might fall on my kitchen, I was as psyched as you were to be living so close. Love you, neighbor.
Great page and great story! Thanks for sharing it!...Nancy :o)
Great neighbor page and love your whole blog post. "Old", or should I say "long-time" friends are so precious!
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