Concentric Circles

In Luke 10:27, Jesus reminds us of the two greatest commandments, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

A couple of days ago, I was flipping through my son's school notebook. One of the classroom papers he had to do had concentric circles. He was supposed to place the things most important to him in the inner circle. As he went away from that center circle, he was supposed to prioritize people in his life, and also character issues. For instance, in that center circle, he put "parents" and "God". Of course, this made me proud -- this was a school project, done in school with no input from me or Dennis. So, the fact that Ben put God at the center of his life pleased me. As it moved outward, there were words like "grandparents", "honesty", "respect". As it moved to the outer circles, I saw "lying", "cheating on a test", "gang members", etc. Finally, I got to the far outer circle. I saw "drugs", "profanity", "stealing" & "my sister". I got so tickled...of course, I know that he loves his sister and one day will appreciate her, but for now, he was putting down his honest assessment, and "sister" ranked down at the bottom!!! Okay...so the "loving thy neighbor" part hasn't come as naturally for him.

It got me thinking about "loving my neighbor". That is a hard concept. I think it's even harder in modern-day America. We are fighting our neighbor and everyone else for everything that we have. You hear horror stories of fights breaking out at the gas pump because of the gas shortage in the Southeast. You hear of people cussing aid workers in Houston because they're not getting to them "fast enough". We hear of bad loans, high interest rates, unfair business practices -- all geared toward one individual making more money over another individual. That's without mentioning crime rates or terrorism. It's a difficult concept to "love" some of these people!

But "neighbor" is a relevant word to us --- especially here at the church. Our church is at an exciting place right now. Here in the City of Arlington, we are right in the center of so much activity and growth -- so much potential for reaching our community. If you walk outside this church building, within view are the Levitt Pavilion (which will soon host thousands each weekend that have never even heard of FBCA), City Hall, UTA, and all of the downtown businesses. Within a mile or two are The Ballpark, the new Cowboys Stadium, and plans for so much more. It is an exciting time.

That means that for us it is so important that we are faithfully growing as authentic, "walking daily with God" Christians. It's so important that we are witnesses of the Jesus Way to the waitress who messed up our order or the guy in traffic who cut us off or the frustrated "customer service" representative we get on the line when disputing a bill. My prayer each day is that I don't get in the way of someone being drawn to God -- that somehow my failure doesn't turn someone away from the Truth of the Gospel. All we have to do is be faithful in living our everyday, ordinary lives -- planting seeds -- nurturing relationship with our neighbors. God will grow them into a harvest!

1 Corinthians 3:6 says, "I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth."

Lord, we pray that you will remind us daily that others see us in action. We pray that you will continue to grow us spiritually deeper in You so that the things that come spilling out in the difficult times point people to You and not to our own selfish gain. We pray that You will help us to live lives that are authentic. We pray that you help us to walk the Jesus Way daily -- not just when it's convenient for our circumstances -- and by doing so, live lives that will glorify You. We desire to be faithful. We look forward to the day of Your Harvest!