Romans 15:2 Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.

Recently my accountability partner posted a letter about how scriptures can convict us. Today I find myself experiencing that very thing.

I am not being a good neighbor. I have allowed our personal struggles to be an excuse to not be known to our new neighbors. We have been here just over 3 years and I don’t even know their names.

Dementia, heart disease and diabetes are not good reasons to be unfriendly. I wave and that is about the extent of my being neighborly. So I have to ask myself with all honesty why I don’t want to be known. This isn’t about them, it is about me.

It appears to me that I am using what we are going through as an excuse to keep people at a safe distance. They have lives of their own and they have not reached out to me either.

Is this where we are today, keeping our neighbors at a safe comfortable distance where we do not take the opportunity to be good.

What does it mean to be good?

Luke 18:19 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Given that Jesus would not allow Himself to be called good, maybe being good is beyond me.

Maybe doing good is not the same as being good. Do I even know what is good for my neighbor since I don’t even know my neighbor?

Now this is my predicament. If the Word has convicted me, what am I going to do about it?

What is the difference between social conscience and conviction?

I reached out to my Vietnamese neighbor because I was in Vietnam in 1966 and 1967. I told her I hated the war and loved the people. Her response, “It is very different there now.” The getting to know each other better ended there. Did I use the wrong approach? I have a Purple Heart plate and am of an age to have served in Vietnam. I didn’t even get to know if he had any thoughts on those plates and what it meant.

Maybe I am out of practice in reaching out. That too is no excuse.

1 John 1:8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

For those of us that have admitted we still sin and we are not happy about it, I say great.

Galatians 2:17 But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not!

We are sinners saved by grace but we are still sinners. 

Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

What we have been saved from is the power of sin and the penalty for sin, but not from the presence of sin. The real power in being born again is that we are no longer alone in this battle against the enemy.

Ephesians 2:2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—

When we disobey, which is what sin is now, the Spirit is at work in us to curb the influences of sin. Our consciences get pricked. That is a KJV term for when an ox is yoked and it needs to be driven to obey a goad pricks the hide of the animal to drive it forward.

Acts 9:5 And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

Here is another way to look at sin in our life. The Holy Spirit only interferes with those free will choices we make when we need a course correction. If our will is in line with God’s will then the movement of the rudder is hardly noticeable. If the wheel is wrench from our hands, it is quite obvious something has to change.

These analogies can be found throughout the bible. As with all things inspired by God, they are useful for growth, understanding and correction.

2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

We want to get it right. Right?