It's Time To Broaden Your Circle
If you’re an intravert or don’t think you need to broaden your circle, for what God is about to do in your life from 2020 forward you will need to let some people into your life. You must begin to go beyond the hand picked friends you run with now.
God is not only going to broaden your circle but He is about to broaden your capacitiy and ability to let a diverse group of people in. Perhaps the George Floyd incident has been the event to make you realize you need to go beyond your comfort zone.
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 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.” “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”
Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”
Most everyone has heard the story of the good samaritan. The story is not so much the focus as is the circumstances and the envirornment that produced the necessity of Jesus sharing the story.
When you read the story the “Lawyer” didn’t question Jesus about loving God, he asked who is my neighbor? It’s important that you understand this person that is an expert in the law is not a Christ seeker, he has come to interigate Christ in hopes of tripping Him up in His theology and embarass Him publickly for His ineptitude to correctly articulate and rightly divide the word of God.
REMEMBER: Every question you get doesn’t come from a good place. Every person that comes along to challenge you doesn’t come because they’re seeking information and truth.
The bible says to avoid foolish and unlearned questions because they do gender strife. Sometimes you will find yourself wrestling with someone and honestly, it’s not worth the fight because they are really not seekers of truth.
This is why DISCERNMENT is extremely important.
What happened is that Jesus started to trip the man up with His knowledge. He asked what did the word say? (Love God and your neighbor) The lawyer doesn’t seem to mind loving God, it’s people he doesn’t love. This is an issue for many. As I said in an earlier message, people love animals more than they love other people.
The lawyer doesn’t give a rebuttle to loving God, he gives a rebuttle to loving his neighbor and that is where the devil is.
The problem is people are not loving like God, not merciful like God, not kind like God. This is where are faith is tested and our flesh is crucified. We have to hold our tongue sometimes and not defend ourselves and be defenseless even when we know we are right, which is not easy.
What’s intriguing about the story is the title, The Good Samaritan. In Jesus’ day, according to the Jews, Samaritans were not good. but yet the two people that we would expect to be good (Priest & Levite) were not good. It goes to show you everything is not as it seems that is why God looks at the heart and when you wonder how God can and does use certain people it’s because they have the right heart.
As I mentioned in last weeks message about race, how we view people is how we have been conditioned to view people. That conditioning comes from TV, Radio, Social Media, our parents, school you went etc…
This all plays a key role in how you view and love people. Do you forgive them like you do yourself? Do you help them like you would yourself? Do you have compassion for them as you do yourself?
How you respond to those questions has a large part in how you were raised and whom you were raised around.
Sociological Constructs – An idea that has been created and accepted by people in a society. It’s not a God idea. People are the creators and acceptor of their truth.
Class Distinctions are a sociological construct. Put a rich baby and a poor baby in a playpen together and they don’t see rich or poor they see a playmate.
Race Ideas are a sociological construct. How you value money is a sociological construct.
A black baby, white baby, indian baby can all be put in a pen and play together wonderfully because they have not yet been conditioned and constructed a sociological idea.
Most of how we react to neighbors, coworkers are conditioned into us, there taught human behaviors.
Society builds something they hold to be truth they created it and accept it but no one challenges it and we call it normal. And everyone’s idea of normal is based on what kind of constructs you built.
What is most terrifying to people is when their cage of construct is rattled.
GOD is a “Cage Shaker” He will do it through his word, through your circumstances, through your environment, but God will not let you leave this world without shaking your cage.
Some people will hear it and some people will not. Just because you call yourself a church person doesn’t mean that you’re not in a cage.
