Love Thy Neighbor

Ambassador Advisors’ mission is to support and promote Biblical stewardship. That mission relates to far more than money. We help steward time, God’s created earth, and the talents and gifts He’s given to all of us.  During times of fear and anger, like the one that our nation faces today, we do our best to steward God’s truth—we cling with hope to His unmoving standard of holiness.

The Bible presents us with a clear mandate to love.  Love God, then love our neighbor. In Luke 10, Jesus was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus didn’t respond that a ‘neighbor’ is the person who lives next door or the person who looks or thinks the same way. Instead, our Savior responded with the parable of the Good Samaritan: the story of someone from a different culture (considered an ‘enemy’ by some) going above and beyond, at great personal expense, to care for one who was injured and ignored by his own people.

The love we are scripturally commanded (and, as fruits of the Holy Spirit, should feel led) to give extends to everyone, especially those in most need at any given time. When an entire people group is insidiously denied life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, due to centuries of marginalization, you can bet they are our neighbors in most need.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously stated, “We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”  Holding our neighbors in this regard would have, long ago, ended the injustice that continues to fester beneath the surface of our great land.

Time and again, in scripture, we see Jesus standing up for those who are marginalized. Jesus didn’t call the poor “blessed” in the Sermon on the Mount, because people with money are not to be blessed; He called the poor blessed because they were neglected by society. Jesus included women in His ministry at a time when they were otherwise silenced and ignored. Jesus exemplified unconditional love in an unconditional manner and, in so doing, drew our attention to examples of injustice borne of our sinful hearts, as a society.  “What Would Jesus Do?” we often ask; it appears quite clear that Jesus would echo another Dietrich Bonhoeffer thought:  “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”

We believe Christians are called to be leaders and stand in support of those needing the kind of love that is bathed in the eternal promises of our Lord and Savior.  We are called to be the first line of defense.  Despite that calling, some of us are spending more time finding reasons not to love our neighbors in need than we are trying to truly understand the issues and actively empathizing with those affected.  Let’s do better as a community of believers, so we can be better as a nation. Ambassador Advisors stands with those peacefully striving to finally make “unalienable” those fundamental rights that so many of us take for granted.

 

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