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  • Love Your Neighbor

    Posted on October 18th, 2012 rhonda No comments

    This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says:

    Reform your ways and your actions,

    and I will let you live in this place.

    Jeremiah 7:3

    I remember reading slave narratives while I was in college.  One of the conversations we had in our English class was a thoughtful consideration of all the ways in which slavery dehumanized the slave-owner.

    I had the privilege of attending a two-day training that was co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (Region II) and the Freedom Network Training Institute.  The training topic was human trafficking, a.k.a., modern day slavery.  I’ll write more about what I learned in a future blog.  For now, suffice it to say that (1) there is a slave trade, (2) it exists inside and outside the United States, (3) it’s the second largest form of organized crime in the world and (4) it does not discriminate.  (For more information, go to the website of the Polaris Project, http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/overview)

    Traffickers prey on vulnerable people.  Slave traders target people who are unprotected and desperate.  When we started talking about all the ways that a person could fall victim to slavers, I felt slightly overwhelmed and discouraged.  Then I thought that one form of prevention is to get traffickers to consider their ways.  My understanding of a mature Christian life is to love God, ourselves, and other people.  The way it looks is that we obey God, and allow Him to tell us how to take care of ourselves and other people.  That’s what it means to be fully human, and it leads to shalom.

    Whenever we decide to ignore God and depend on ourselves, we run the risk of using other people and not living up to our God-given potential as human beings.

    Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and

    with all your mind and with all your strength. 

    The second is this:

    Love your neighbor as yourself. 

    There is no commandment greater than these.

    Mark 12:30-31

     

    1 responses to “Love Your Neighbor” RSS icon

    • Rodaha,

      I agree with you. Mature Christian love must be able to extend outside of one’s home and one’s church.

      Thank you for including the link of the Polaris Project in your writing.

      Pelicanflies


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