Preparing Involves Getting to Know Your Neighbors
March 22, 2023 1:22 PM
Anno.Domini.144K
March 22, 2023
In a dream vision, the Holy Spirit took me to a street with houses closely packed on each side. It was daytime, and the people in these homes, mostly women, were busy preparing their homes for all sorts of eventualities. Most had extra food, household supplies, and medicines. Some had purchased equipment to cook meals off-grid, and I saw a portable camping mini-stove that uses butane and can safely be operated indoors.
As the women made preparations, a Goodwill truck appeared. Instead of picking up bags of people’s donations, the truck driver was delivering donations of bags of used clothing of all sizes that these women had purchased in bulk. The driver actually rolled out multiple bags that had been bound together with clear large cast stretch wrap. The women did not yet need this clothing, and they were not poor, but they were preparing to clothe others who they expected would be coming within days or weeks.
I walked down the street among these women as if I was one of their neighbors. I cheered them on and applauded their efforts, telling them that I had been preparing too. But I did not know them really, and I had to introduce myself to them. In my mind, I wondered how I had lived down the street for so long and not gotten to know these neighbors. I’d had my own circle of friends and family, many of them far away in other states, connected only by phone and internet. But what would I do without this established circle near me—one fateful day without phone service and internet? And now, because of an expected emergency on a national scale, I was finally reaching out to say hello to my neighbors only a short walk away.
When I awoke from this dream vision, I heard the Holy Spirit’s words, “Preparing involves getting to know your neighbors. Better late than never. Get to know your neighbors now.”
Scripture:
Proverbs 27:10 NIV
10 Do not forsake your friend or a friend of your family,
and do not go to your relative’s house when disaster strikes you—
better a neighbor nearby than a relative far away.
Isaiah 58:6-9 NIV
True Fasting
6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
Matthew 22:34-40 NIV
The Greatest Commandment
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
Matthew 25:34-36 NIV
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
Romans 13:8-10 NIV
Love Fulfills the Law
8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law.
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