Are You a Good Samaritan?

If you really fulfill the royal law according 
to the Scripture, 

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” 
you are doing well. 

But if you show partiality, you are committing sin 

and are convicted by the law as transgressors."

James 2:8-9

James speaks of partiality in light of the rich and the poor, but there are so many ways in which we show partiality.  I read part of an article today that said that studies show that among conservative Christians, there are as few "good Samaritans" as there are in the general population.  Sadly, it was an atheist who wrote the article; what kind of example are we for one who hates Christ?  The article stated also that Christians are more likely to help their "own kind" than they are to help those very different from themselves.

When Jesus told the young man in Luke 10 that the greatest commandment was to "love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself,”  the young man asked Him, "Who is my neighbor?"

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Image from Children's Corner at San Francisco Central Seventh-day Adventist Church

Sermons4Kids.com

You know the story of the Good Samaritan.  We have heard it since we were children.  We have told it to our children, given them coloring pages, and taught the story many times in Sunday School.  But is it as easy to live the story as it is to tell it?

I must go to the jail to visit a woman whom I've known for a number of years.  It is not a pleasant situation, that she is in, and I am not comfortable doing this. I really do have some choices.  I can look at her with disdain and refuse to dirty my hands.  Or I can pretend that she doesn't exist at all, looking the other way.  Or I can have compassion on her; I can bind up her spiritual wounds and dress them with the oil and wine of the Holy Spirit.  She needs an impartial friend to give her a cup of cold water in the name of Jesus.

What should I do?  What would you do?

Not wanting to be labeled as a transgressor,

Gloria