Draw Near – 365 Guides to Greater Intimacy with GodSample

DEATH SENTENCE

Loo Ching migrated to the United States from China several years ago. Soon after his arrival, he violated a fundamental law of the Tong Soon. The council met and sentenced him to death, but American law forbade the sentence be carried out. So the leaders simply decreed Loo Ching a dead man. From then on, no one spoke to him. Shopkeepers would not sell him food. Children turned the other way when he came down the street. His room was rented to another and his belongings put in the alley. He could not speak English and knew nothing of American ways. Each day, he grew thinner--until one morning, he was found dead in the snow outside a teashop.

People need people. In the tragic case of Loo Ching, his death sentence was effectively carried out when people withdrew their love. Paul says relationships are important. He encourages believers to consider others in everything they do. One can never withdraw his love from others and remain a believer.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" Paul tells us we are to be concerned for others. He also reminds us to hold others in higher esteem than we do ourselves. In other words, we are to invest our love and concern in those about us. We must remember that our Christian responsibility is both vertical and horizontal: to God and to others.