This devotion was originally shared in 2018.
You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices. — Mark 12:32-33, New International Version
Habitat for Humanity provides a uniquely wonderful means for volunteers and homeowners to serve one another in communities. I recently returned from a Global Village trip to Prince Edward Island, in Canada, where I was able to work daily alongside a future homeowner. As we worked together, our team began to understand her story as she learned about ours. Every day, the homebuyer’s mother and sister brought our team a delicious homemade lunch. Her neighbors also dropped in periodically to observe our progress and show appreciation.
The volunteers who wanted to be a part of this experience also demonstrated a servant heart as they fundraised and used their own resources to travel great distances to serve in the building of this community.
So many people were touched by this experience — the volunteers, the homeowner and her neighbors. All of them exemplified the agape love of Christ.
During this season of Lent, let us focus on the unconditional love of Jesus that inspires us to act selflessly in the service of one another. Let us recall the parable of the Good Samaritan and remember that Jesus instructed us to love our neighbor as ourselves. When asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus described a story in which a man was robbed, beaten and left half-dead. After two religious leaders passed him by, it was a Samaritan — a stranger — who fed, clothed and cared for the man.
In Luke 10:36-37, we read, “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him — and Jesus intends for us — to “go and do likewise.”
Lisa Marie Nickerson is associate director of the Women Build program at Habitat for Humanity International. She is based in Americus, Georgia, USA.
