Once I Was Young

All scripture references, unless otherwise noted, are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible. 
The Bible makes the statement in Psalm 37:25,  "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." I wonder how many times I have used that verse of Scripture over the years when I thought I was getting old. Now I really am old, age 76+ to be inexact. But I can say with David that I too have never "seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." God is truly a good God! What a wonderful promise is in this psalm. You ought to read it through again, and again. In Matthew 19:16-22, the Lord Jesus was  accosted by a man who called him, "good master," and asked the Lord, "what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?" the Lord immediately responded with the question, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." When asked by the man, "which," the Lord proceeded to tell the young man.

A lawyer came to the Lord and asked the question in Matthew 22:35-36, "...tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? (The lawyer's job was to explain the Law of Moses, not a lawyer in the sense we think of) Jesus answered the question and said in Matthew 22:40, "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." In Luke 10:25-28 is apparently the same instance but in verse 29 the Bible says, "But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?" Thus we have the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The Jews and the Samaritans didn't like each other. The Lord's use of a Samaritan must have been a blow to the ego of those standing by because the Lord told the lawyer to, "...Go, and do thou likewise."

I wonder if we don't try to justify our own actions in much the same way. Well, who is my neighbor anyway? I'll tell you who! It is anyone you run across, that's who! What do you think the second commandment is? To love your neighbor as yourself. Do you want to go to heaven one day? Why? Because you love yourself. If you love your neighbor as yourself you will want your neighbor to go to heaven also. And if you don't you are probably breaking both.