Neighbors

Do you pray for your neighbors? Regularly? Do you see your neighborhood as one of your primary places of influence and mission? If so, do you love your neighbors or just view them as a project?

These are all questions that have been on my heart for several months. Some that have been posed to me by others, some that the Holy Spirit has brought to my mind. There is a passage in Acts 17 that has been a comfort and a catalyst for me as I think about these questions.

Acts 17:22-28
²²Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. ²³For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. ²⁴"The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. ²⁵And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. ²⁶From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. ²⁷God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

There are so many things about this passage that stand out to me but the part I want to hit on here is verse 26, "From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live." I am made in the image of God who has placed me in this home at this time. Amazing!

That is a comfort to me when I think that I will never be around my neighbors because our work schedules are so different, or that the barriers are too high to really be able to build relationships with them, or that my words have fallen on deaf ears. God has put me here, now... and I am His.

It is a catalyst for me because I know that God put me here, now. I want to take full advantage of the many opportunities He gives me with my neighbors. God knows how long I will be here, but I don't. So why should I tarry?

Pray for your neighbors. Know them by name. Get to know them personally. Live life with them. Be friends with them. And share the gospel with them in words as well as action.