✝️🔎TOPIC: CARING FOR ONE’S NEIGHBOUR
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✝️📖TEXT: DEUTERONOMY 22:1-12(NKJV)
1. “You shall not see your brother’s ox or his sheep going astray, and hide yourself from them; you shall certainly bring them back to your brother.
2. “And if your brother [is] not near you, or if you do not know him, then you shall bring it to your own house, and it shall remain with you until your brother seeks it; then you shall restore it to him.
3. “You shall do the same with his donkey, and so shall you do with his garment; with any lost thing of your brother’s, which he has lost and you have found, you shall do likewise; you must not hide yourself.
4. ” You shall not see your brother’s donkey or his ox fall down along the road, and hide yourself from them; you shall surely help him lift [them] up again.
5. ” A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment, for all who do so [are] an abomination to the LORD your God.
6. ” If a bird’s nest happens to be before you along the way, in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs, with the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young;
7. “you shall surely let the mother go, and take the young for yourself, that it may be well with you and [that] you may prolong [your] days.
8. ” When you build a new house, then you shall make a parapet for your roof, that you may not bring guilt of bloodshed on your household if anyone falls from it.
9. ” You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled.
10. ” You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together.
11. ” You shall not wear a garment of different sorts, [such as] wool and linen mixed together.
12. ” You shall make tassels on the four corners of the clothing with which you cover [yourself.]
✝️📜STUDY:
God’s interest in the affairs of His people cannot be over emphasised. This is why He sets rules to regulate the life of His people. These rules include the way to treat and live in harmony with our neighbours. As the camel is the train of the desert, so is the ox the tractor of ancient Palestine. The people used oxen to till their land for farming. Since they operated an agrarian economy, when one’s ox was lost, it affected one’s business. So, anyone who found the lost ox was to return it to its owner.
This is equivalent to our neighbour’s source of income or missing property today. God wants us to be a benefactor to others who are in need. Christians should not close their eyes at their brothers who are in need. They must give diligent care to their neighbour’s property, just as their own. Caring for one another is God’s injunction to His people. God desires His people to care for one another. Caring for each other can take place in different ways. It connotes love. This is why God commanded us to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Mathew 22:39).
✝️🙏🏽PRAYER:
Father help me to assist my neighbour in any way I can in Jesus’ Name. Amen.