To Save a Life

Last night I went to see the Movie "To Save a Life". Basically, it was the tell-tale story of a popular boy and an unpopular boy who were friends "once upon a time." When disaster strikes, the popular boy is left with a lot of questions of how he could have lived his life differently and begins to make strives to make a difference in the lives of others. All this week, I have been studying the parable of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). I have spent each day reading the passage and then picking a person to reflect upon. My first day was on the robbers, second on the priest, third on the Levite then today, I thought I would focus on the Samaritan but something stopped me. After seeing the movie last night, it struck me this morning to question myself to see why I hadn't started with the guy that was robbed and left for dead. I don't know why I didn't, but it bothered me. I went to pull out our commentary to see what ol' Vernon McGee had to say about the traveler. He said that the traveler represented humanity. Humanity that found itself helpless, hopeless, and unable to save itself. Ultimately, the world today is like the man that fell among thieves and needs our help. The world needs Christ. A real, genuine Christ not a lofty, judgemental, harsh religion. If you look further, you see what the Samaritan did, he cleaned his wounds, he carried him on his donkey to the nearest town, paid for his room, found someone to care for him until his return. I am sorry, but that was way more than handing someone a track, telling a person down on their luck they need "Jesus", or inviting someone to church. It was involved, it was time-consuming, it was costly. Our Sunday School lessons for the past 6 weeks has been focusing on the greatest commandment "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." I think we have to stop and ask ourselves a few questions:
1) Who are our "neighbors"?
2) Who am I best represented by in this parable: the traveler,
the robbers, the priest, the Levite or the Samaritian?
3) What/if anything, am I going to do about it?