October 2024 Revealing Light Newsletter

There is this unique relationship and history that we share with neighbors. At first you were strangers, but overtime, you’ve shared history together. Something happens in the area, an ambulance goes flying down your road, a fire happened, balloons are hanging up on the mailbox, lots of cars in the driveway for different reasons, kids running in the yard, flowers and gardens taken care of when someone is out of town, phone calls made, doorbells rung, weathered through storms together, arguments heard outside, celebrations and cheer ringing outside of the walls too. Whether you’ve said much to each other, done much together, or just simply experienced much together, it’s a special relationship and bond that you share with neighbors. Even the simple waves across the street or down the road has made a special bond with your neighbors.

It makes sense that Jesus would share one of the ways we would shine His light in this world is by loving our neighbors. Even with all of our different backgrounds and stories, these unique relationships we have with our neighbors are one of the ways we learn to live out Jesus’ love to other people. We may only see a stranger once, but with neighbors we have multiple times when we interact by our words and/or deeds. Our words and deeds communicate something to our neighbors, even if we choose to ignore those neighbors, it still communicates something.  Instead, we consider how can we embrace loving people who are already our neighbors. We are living, breathing, walking Disciples of Jesus who are shining His light with our neighbors through words and deeds.
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- Daryl Struemph

“For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement: Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Gal 5:13-14 [CSB])

“You are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8), ...shine as lights in this world.” (Mt 5:14-16, Phil 2:15)

If you wanted to make a change in your community, would you be able to do it all by yourself? Probably not. Example: If you were tired of people throwing trash out in the grass around your community, would anything change if you went out to pick up all that trash by yourself? It might be clean for a day, but other people are going to keep throwing trash out, so it will be back tomorrow. But what if more people over time decided to not throw trash out, and if they saw trash, then they  also picked it up? Overtime, that community would be changing. More people wouldn’t throw trash out in the grass, and if they saw trash, they would pick it up, and that community’s culture would be changing. But that change doesn’t happen nor is it sustained by one person alone, other people would need to help make those changes as well.

This is similar to a community that has a loving culture. However, if you decided you wanted to love people more, that would mean getting to know people around you at a deeper level. But, we can’t know everyone at that deep of a level, there’s too many people. But what if you took the time to love the people closest to you, your neighbors? Your neighbor might be 100 feet from your door, or a mile down the road. Yet, if other people intentionally loved their neighbors too, then communities would be impacted by love through words and deeds. It wasn’t because one person reached the entire community in love, but by many people loving their neighbors, the community becomes a place that is loving.

It then makes sense why Jesus didn’t try to reach every single person in the world but chose to love the people around him deeply, who would also love the people around them deeply, which continues to spread that kind of love and care to different communities around the world. Jesus discipled these people who would then disciple other people who would also disciple other people, sharing the message of what Jesus Christ has done for us through His love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness. He has paid the price to save us from our sins and reconcile our relationship with God, now and into eternity. Today, we are those living, breathing, walking, talking disciples of Jesus who are shining His light with our neighbors in our communities. Again, you have a shared unique history with your neighbors that no stranger has who comes knocking on the doors. Embrace your unique relationships with your neighbors, get to know them, love them as God loves them. With God’s Spirit in us, working in words and deeds, we continue to love our neighbors as God loves them, shining Jesus’ light with our neighbors in our communities.

 - Daryl Struemph