The Time For Action

Do not withhold good from those who deserve it when it’s in your power to help them. If you can help your neighbor now, don’t say, “Come back tomorrow, and then I’ll help you.”

Proverbs 3:27-28

IT WAS JUST AFTER 3:00 A.M. when the young woman pulled her red sports car into a parking space near her apartment. She got out of the car, locked it, and began the 100-foot walk to her front door. She never made it. A man grabbed her and stabbed her. Her frantic screams for help pierced the night. Lights began to go on as neighbors heard her cry out.

Eventually, someone called the police, who arrived to find the body of twenty-eight-year-old Kitty Genovese. Detectives investigating the crime discovered that thirty-eight people had witnessed the crime from nearby apartments; yet no one had come to Kitty’s aid, and no one had called the police until after she was dead. Why? They didn’t want to get involved.

That brutal murder, committed in 1964, became symbolic of the dark side of our national character. Psychologists and social scientists even coined a term—Genovese syndrome—to describe the group psychology that leads eyewitnesses to a tragedy to choose not to offer aid. “I didn’t want to get involved” seems to speak a truth no one wants to face head-on—that we’re often so concerned with ourselves and our own well-being that we ignore the needs of others around us whom we could help. Think of it this way: Jesus didn’t ignore your desperate need for help. He came all the way down from heaven to save you. That kind of love should move us to love others.

BOTTOM LINE

Because we have been loved so extravagantly by God, we can and should love others out of the overflow. Are you living a life of love?

Moment of Strength: James 1:22