I've been loving my neighbor. They hit a telephone pole with their car. They were airlifted to a hospital. A social worker called and left a message on our answering machine asking if we could take them home from the hospital. I show up at the hospital so that the doctor can take me seriously and the doctor thinks about it and says when they can go home. I take my neighbor home but the other neighbor has to go in to a rehab facility. So I let my neighbor call me every day when she wants to get picked up and I take her home so she has help being with her husband.
I cut their grass for them. I helped them lift their generator and put it in place for the hurricane season. I've given them jumps when their battery is dead.
They still have a pride issue. The power went out. I asked if I could turn her generator on for her. She says "no" and we were out of power for 15 hours when Hurricane Sandy hit and our other neighbor invited us to plug into theirs. I since then bought our own generator and our power went out for three days when the ice storm hit. I invited to run a line from my generator to her house and she said, "no". We had neighbors who invited her to their house to get warm and she said, "no". I asked my neighbor if we could take her to a shelter and she said, "no". Her friend came down and called the police on her because her house dropped 10 degrees the first night and went down to 50 F the second night.
We got eight inches of snow and I was shoveling the driveway and she was yelling out the window at me to use her snow blower.
In any event, it doesn't matter how much you love someone. Love isn't going to change them for the better.
I got the Salvation Army pastor upset at me because they have a whole staff that tries to fix people. They have a shelter for people on drugs and alcohol. People complain they aren't in the program long enough to work.
John 5:7 The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
John 5:8 Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.
What ability does a paralyzed man have in taking up his bed and walking? None, right? But when God says to take up your bed and walk, He gives them the ability and yet God tells us how to live right so when He tells us how to live right, He gives us the ability. When we love people and they can't behave then it isn't loving them enough that is their problem. They agape darkness rather than light.
The problem is not us loving people enough. The problem is that people have walls and won't yield to God's power.
Our neighbor knows we're Christians but won't complain about us but she will gossip about the Christian family across the street because she hates Christians and it is the same reason why she will say she loves us but still yells at me through the window to use her snow blower after saying the day before not to use the snow blower. I just decided to do the driveway myself and still do her walk and back walk by hand and shovel. She still has a reason to complain about free snow removal. I do my shoveling of my house and I love my neighbor as myself by shoveling her house.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfdNhhOF8aA]Patty Smyth and Don Henley - Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough (Lyrics) - YouTube[/ame]
We don't listen to your sloppy agape because few people respond to love.
We ask two questions:
(1) What is right?
(2) What is just?
Because sometimes love just isn't enough.
