Greetings Church! Thank you, thank you church for welcoming us to your community. We have enjoyed the fun fellowship that we have had over the last two months.  We are looking forward to what God may have in store for us all as we discern God’s call for us.

As we move into the fall, we will begin to look at a series called “Who is My Neighbor?”  We will be looking at a book titled The Simple Faith of Mister Rogers: Spiritual Insights from the World’s Most Beloved Neighbor. You can find it on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Faith-Mister-Rogers/dp/0849918944 or you can contact the church office and we will order a book for you.

In Luke 10 – The Parable of the Good Samaritan 25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

27 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. 28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”29 But he wanted to justify himself,so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

An expert in the law of Moses came to Jesus and attempted to “test” Him, however, he was the one who got tested. Luke tells us that he was “wanting to justify himself” as a keeper of the law, when he said to Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told the familiar parable of “The Good Samaritan” to identify “who” a neighbor is and “what” a true neighbor does.

We hear the word “neighbor” and we probably think of the person living in a house next to us, but God had a much larger “neighborhood” in mind. The Greek word for “neighbor” means “the one who is near or close by, fellow human being.” This includes our family, our friends, our church family, our coworkers, our doctor, our cashier, our enemies…….it includes everyone!

Knowing that everyone is your “neighbor”, what kind of neighbor are you? Do you “do” (10:28, 37) as the Good Samaritan did and as the lawyer was told to do? Do you serve, give, help and “do good unto others” (Gal. 6:10), with a selfless, compassionate spirit? I look forward to us diving deeper to discover how we can as a church further become that kind of a neighbor!

We Press On together with God’s Love!

Pastor Bruce