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We identify friends by how they respond to needs.

What causes us to give aid to relieve suffering in an "unthinkable situation?"

The Christian's motivation for helping a person in need . . .

Read Eph.2:10 (TAP)

WHAT MADE THE SAMARITAN 
A GOOD SAMARITAN

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The culmination of our Christian experience shows us that in this realm we can represent God to others.  Not just to tell them what He did at the Cross, but show  (in our behavior) how we have been changed. We can now look beyond ourselves to care more about others. Our response to human need becomes part of our 'witness'..

Because of our faith in the resurrected Christ, and as we study the Bible, pray, and have fellowship with other believers, we become new people. 

The Christ experience 

• makes us more gracious, more forgiving, 

• enables us  to overcome our skepticism about others, 

• makes us more willing to share with another -- even a stranger, whose suffering can be alleviated by my gift.

Many Christians, I fear, believe they are known as a Christian by the church they attend, or by what they do in fellowship with others. Or even by the things they ARE AGAINST.

Christ says we are known by our love.

Love comes from God in us and translates into action.   

His beloved disciple wrote, "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.  This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence."
(NIV)  I Jn 3:17-19

This almost sounds like a litmus test, doesn't it?  We can tell who we are. So can God by what we do in the face of human need.

When Nancy Nutter read on these pages about an elderly cancer patient who was suffering in the August heat in his home, she referred to it as, "an almost unthinkable situation."  She sent $50, then later seeing (on our web) that others were slow to respond, sent another $50 a few days later. 

For one of us to see his suffering as an "unthinkable situation," we only have to pause for a moment, step out of our own agenda and allow God to minister to us.  He will help us "feel" the need of the other and to respond as He would. 

-- Dee Stribling 

Building Up Our Neighbor

I suppose those who can do so are the ones who know that their success comes from God -- using the emotional, mental, physical and spiritual gifts he has given to them.