Learning to ride a bicycle is a hard task. Do you remember taking on the struggle? You knew that inevitably, eventually, you would learn to ride, but there were lots of lessons to learn the hard way until you completely learned how to operate your bicycle. Every time you started to ride down the sidewalk, you and the bicycle fell over. You tried, tried, and tried again, with the very same results. Then came the time, however, that was worse than all the rest. You smacked the concrete hard after this fall, rendering yourself helpless and crying. You began to think that no one was there to help you, until you saw the hand reaching out to help you up. Someone was there to help when it seemed like no one would ever see the need.
The story of the Good Samaritan was Christ’s lesson on what it means to be truly helpful. A lawyer had asked a difficult question, in order to put Christ on the spot, but in turn Christ put the lawyer on the spot by telling him to love God and his neighbor. The lawyer, “…willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?” He was not asking Jesus to tell him who lived next door to him. The lawyer wanted to know whom he was required to love or to help. The story of the Good Samaritan answers this question by stating that we must love and be helpful to any and all who need it.
The story that Christ told to the lawyer was about a traveler who was ambushed, robbed and left for dead. Later a priest, then a Levite, and finally a Samaritan passed by and saw this man, but only the Samaritan stopped to help. Then Christ posed the question to the lawyer, “Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?” The answer was clear and unavoidable. The lawyer had to admit that loving your neighbor meant loving anyone you see who needs your love and care.
The lawyer learned that no one is exempt from your love and helpfulness, no matter what their social status may be. The principle Christ taught to the lawyer applies to us as well. We ought not just look for ways to meet the needs of only our friends and family. If we are to display the true love of Christ, we should be willing to meet every need we can, even the needs of perfect strangers we pass on the street. If we all lived by this principle, we would impact others for Christ in a way that our community has never before experienced.
There are several other true Bible stories illustrating helpfulness which are taught in Character Connection. In the case of Naaman in the Old Testament, a little servant girl changed the life of a mighty warrior just by mentioning something she had seen happen before. It is probable that in our times of selfishness and pride, we miss opportunities to be a blessing to those around us. It begins with small acts of generosity but can lead to great blessing from Almighty God. We must take every opportunity the Lord gives us to be a blessing to others.
In yet another Bible story, Queen Esther jeopardized her own life by revealing her nationality to her husband, the king, in order to save her countrymen from persecution and death. What if Esther had not helped her people? What would have happened to the people of Israel? What if Esther had stayed quiet and not spoken to the king? We must learn that we have been placed where we are to help, and the consequences of not helping could be devastating. We have all heard the quote, “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” It seems that in our society today, everyone is usually just out for themselves. Seldom does anyone look at the bigger picture. It also seems, in many cases, we have boys and girls who do see the need to help others. Children need to learn to be helpful, or we will continue to see our society just be takers and not givers.
MEMORY VERSE
“Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Psalm 124:8