Why are we so quick to want to do the bare minimum? Our culture is filled with quick fixes, easy outs, and shortcuts. We can have a pizza ready in 15 minutes, we’ve created microwaves that heat things up in seconds, we’re always looking for ways to save time. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but if it begins to change the way our character is developing that’s when we need to take a half step back.

I was at a small group the other night and we were reading through the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). This is a story Jesus told in response to a well-educated man’s question of, “who is my neighbor?” This man had just correctly proclaimed that in order to inherit eternal life one must love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. He then asks the question of who is his neighbor.

Jesus jumps into story and paints a picture of a man who has been beaten, robbed, and left to die on the side of the road. A Priest and a Levite walk by and disregard the man in need. For some back story, these were two people whose job it was to serve the people and to act as an intermediary between the people of Israel and God Himself, if anyone ought to have assisted you’d think it would have been one of these two – but they don’t.

A third man walks by. He’s a Samaritan. Now, the Samaritans were hated by the Jewish people in the ancient days because the land of Israel had been split into a Northern and Southern Kingdom. The Northern Kingdom was exiled by the Assyrians and forced to intermarry with the non-Israelites. It’s from this offspring that the Samaritans have descended from. The Jews considered them half-Jews and were looked down upon because of it.

Back to the story. It’s the Samaritan man that chooses to respond. He sees the man in need and helps him up, tends his wounds, places him on his own horse and takes him into town. He then brings the man to an inn, pays for his stay, and charges the inn keeper to do whatever needs to be done to help bring the man back to full health, and he will return to settle the bill upon his return.

Jesus steps out of the story and asks the man, “which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?” The man responded, “the one who showed mercy.” The parable concluded with Jesus saying, “You go, and do likewise” (Luke 10:36-37).

This may be a story you’ve heard 100 times growing up, regardless, there is such deep truth to be found here. The man at the beginning of the story knew what the requirement of the Law was. He was to love his neighbor with the same intensity that he loves himself. This is no easy task, so he asks the question who is my neighbor as a way to reduce the number of people he may need to act as a neighbor towards.

Jesus flips that thinking on its head in His story. The Good Samaritan is not answering the man’s question. He’s being taught a deeper truth. The story isn’t about who your neighbor is, it’s about being neighborly. Jesus is after a characteristic in us, not a 10-person list of who you need to show kindness towards.

This convicted me the other night. I’m all too aware of my tendency to do less if I’m not required to do more. Friends, God is after so much more in us. He desires for us not to simply “do” the right things, but to be and inhabit the right things. It’s out of this place of being sanctified, or becoming more like Jesus on the inside, that neighborly actions are produced.

I want to ask you today, where are you taking shortcuts? This could be spiritually, physically, emotionally. Choosing the easy way builds a type of character. This truth brings a heaviness to how we decide to endure through things in life and interact with others. Maybe we need to be asking less about who it is we have to serve and more about how can I become one who serves. The best way to start is to ask the Lord to put someone in your path today that you can show kindness to. Let’s venture into growing our neighborly characteristic together.