Dear Christian friends:

When you hear this story about the Good Samaritan you perhaps think that Jesus is trying to teach us to be good like the Good Samaritan. Strange as this may seem, this is not what Jesus intended to teach by this story. If we look at the verses preceding the story we can see that Jesus had another purpose in mind. He told this story to a self-righteous lawyer. The lawyer thought that he could be saved or justified by his own feeble attempts to keep God's Law. He wanted to justify himself, the Bible says here. Jesus doesn't want us to justify ourselves. He came from heaven to justify us. Jesus justified us by keeping God's Law perfectly for us, as our Substitute, and He also justified us by suffering our punishment upon the cross. If we, like this lawyer, try to justify ourselves, we exclude Jesus and are not justified but condemned.

So we need to give careful attention to this story of the Good Samaritan. By it Jesus shows that no man can justify himself before God.

The Good Samaritan truly loved his neighbor. He loved everyone, even his enemy. The man whom the thieves robbed and beat-up was a Jew. Samaritans and Jews hated each other. They never spoke to one another. But this Samaritan in Jesus' story stopped to speak to the victim who lay moaning by the roadside. He did much more than talk to him. He "bound up his wounds," and gave him first aid. And he risked his life to do this, because it was dark and the robbers may have still been hiding behind rocks and trees, waiting for another to attack. After he gave first aid to the victim the Good Samaritan put the man on his own donkey and brought him into the town. There he rented a room for the injured man and took care of him for the rest of the night. In the morning he made arrangements with the innkeeper to care for the victim until he was well. He gave the innkeeper money in advance to pay for the injured man's room, meals and nursing care.

This is the love and concern God's law demands of each one of us. But you know and I know that none of us has love and mercy like that. We are usually like the priest and the Levite in the story. When they came to the victim lying dying by the road they passed by on the other side. No doubt they had reasons and made "beautiful" excuses for their failure to love and help. I'm sure we all have some "beautiful" excuses for not helping the flood victims along the Colorado river areas. "Let the hearing people do it. The government will take care of them. It's really not my business," are some samples.

The Bible says,"Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of love," Galatians 6:2. "We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren," 1 John 3:16. "Love never ceases," 1 Corinthians 13. "Perfect love casts out fear," 1 John 4.

So it ought to be very clear to us that we can't justify ourselves, excuse ourselves. Only God can justify us, excuse us, and He has done that through His dear Son Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Good Samaritan. There never has been and never will be another man who can come close to the performance of this fictitious man in Jesus' story. Thank God that we are not justified by our own works. If we were, we would all be sent away from God forever. Praise God that He justifies us because of His Son Jesus Christ who did every good work of love and mercy, and He did it for us. Our daily confession should be like that of Augustus M. Toplady who wrote the hymn "Rock of Ages." He confesses in verse 2 and 3:

Not the labors of my hands
Can fulfill Thy Law's Demands;
Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Thou must save and Thou alone.

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling;
Naked, come to thee for dress;
Helpless, look to thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly,
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

When God through the Gospel justifies us for Jesus' sake, then Christ will begin to live in our hearts. Our conscience will be awakened, and it will not be so easy for us to make excuses or to pass by on the other side. Sometimes we will see a miracle happen in ourselves and other Christians; we will see some deeds of love done by ourselves and others. With God's grace and help we will once in a while(sometimes) love our neighbor as we love ourselves. But most of all and best of all, we do have hope and peace in our hearts because we know that God loves us and accepts us in spite of our many failures and sins. This gives us hope for the future and for eternal living in heaven. There we shall be fully freed from our sinful natures, so that we can love God and love one another even as He loves us. But let us not wait until heaven; let us have a little taste of heaven on earth. Let us love one another and help the poor and the needy. Let us depend on His Word and Holy Spirit to daily revive us and strengthen us to perform His great deeds of love and mercy.

Amen.