Being Our Brother's Keeper
How often have we thought about how others are doing? I have bread to eat but what about my neighbor? I have a place to sleep but what about my neighbor, I have a family but what about the guy on the street? Do we give a thought about the other person? Do we care about how our actions affect another person? Does our actions cause others pain or bring happiness to others.
Genesis 4:9 tells us how Cain replied God about Abel. He answered that he is not responsible for his brother Abel. That means he that he didn't feel responsible for his brother. He felt he should care about himself alone. However we forget that our lives depend on the actions of others. A distracted doctor with family problems will probably give a patient a wrong diagnosis, wrong medication or even perform a surgery wrongly. The cashier at the grocery store may give you the wrong directions just because he or she is having a bad day. Proverbs 17:17 says "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity" Are we really friends to our friends or even a real brother or sister to our siblings.
John 5:7 tells of the paralyzed man at the pool who replied Jesus that he didn't have anyone to help him to get to the pool to get healed. He was then healed by Jesus. Being your brother's keeper is just a little responsiblity God has given us. God himself can help our neighbors without our help. God can help whoever he wants to help even without without a single human interference. He rained manna and quail for the Israelites in the desert according to Exodus 16. We are just mere helpers on this earth and we do not actually have a say in anybody's destiny.
On the hand in Luke 5:17-39, a man was helped by his neighbors through a roof to get healing. That is being your brother's keeper! Mark 12:31 says the second most important commandment is that we should love our neigbor as ourselves.Do we wish harm on ourselves? Then we should learn to treat peole the way we like to be treated. God can make even our enemies our helpers if he has to. Paul who was persecuting Christians became the same person who changed and preached the word of God according to Acts 9. Why did God ask Cain where his brother was? Did he not know already? Being our brother's keeper is just a test of our humanity. We are not really in control of what happens to our neighbors. The song says God is able to do whatever he says he will do!
God told Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5 that before he was born he knew him. God knows whatever our destiny is. We as neighbors are just helpers and we actually cannot change any destiny of a person. Being our brother's keeper just means being there for our neighbors. By so doing we create healthier and safer neighborhoods with less crime as result of satisfying everyone's basic need. The less people with depression as a result of lack of basic needs, the less likely a person may get agitated to commit crime.
Psalm 133:1 says " How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!"
