Jesus was the undisputed master of the turning point.
He had a way of bringing people right to the edge of something holy, then pausing. No hype. No countdown clock. No soft piano under the moment to help everyone feel appropriately spiritual. Just a story, a question, and a quiet space where heaven waited to see what a human would do next.
That is exactly where a religious lawyer finds himself at the end of the Good Samaritan story in Luke 10. The crowd is silent. The question has been answered. The categories have been disrupted. The priest and the Levite do not look very good. The Samaritan looks a lot like God.
Then Jesus lands the plane with four simple words.
“Go and do likewise.”
No commentary. No closing prayer. No worship song to soften the blow. Just a holy assignment hanging in the air.
Scripture never tells us what the lawyer did next.
Did he walk away offended? Did he go home and change his calendar? Did he ever stop for a broken person on his own Jericho Road?
We do not know. Maybe that is the point.
Because this is not just his ending. It is ours.
In my new book, The Road We Must Travel Again, I argue that the Good Samaritan is more than a beautiful morality tale. It is Jesus giving us a pattern for an entire way of life. Presence. Proximity. Compassion. Cost. And finally, activation. Those last four words are the bridge between parable and practice.
This blog is about standing on that bridge.
From Admiration to Activation
On the surface, “Go and do likewise” sounds simple.
Go.
Do.
Like the Samaritan.
But tucked inside that command are three dangerous shifts.
First, Jesus moves us from theory to movement. This is not a call to admire a story. It is an invitation to join it. Jesus refuses to let the Good Samaritan sit politely in our Bibles as inspirational content. He wants it to erupt in our neighborhoods, churches, cities, and calendars as calling.
Second, He moves us from intention to action. We live in a culture that feels deeply and does slowly. We repost compassion far more easily than we practice it. Jesus is very kind, but He is not sentimental. Faith that does not move is not faith at all. James said it plainly: “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
Third, He moves us from religious scorecards to eternal ones. The lawyer was trying to define the minimums of righteous living. Jesus gave him a maximum. Go. Live like this. Let your life become an answer to broken people, not just a defense of correct doctrine.
Every one of us has to decide whether that sentence will be a slogan or a lifestyle.
The Road Is Still Crowded
And that decision matters right now.
The Church is standing at a very similar crossroads in this cultural moment. Trust is fragile. Cynicism is loud. Gallup data showed that confidence in the church or organized religion had hovered near historic lows before rising to 36 percent in 2025.¹ That is encouraging, but it is also sobering. Most Americans are no longer looking at the Church with automatic trust.
At the same time, spiritual hunger is not gone. Barna research found that 74 percent of U.S. adults say they want to grow spiritually, and 44 percent say they are more open to God than they were before the pandemic.² The issue is not whether people are hungry. The issue is whether the Church is willing to meet them on the road where hunger actually shows up.
The Jericho Road is still crowded.
Abuse stories. Addiction stories. Anxiety stories. Loneliness stories. A U.S. Surgeon General advisory warned that about one in two adults in America had reported experiencing loneliness in recent years.³ The American Psychiatric Association later found that 30 percent of adults said they felt lonely at least once a week, and 10 percent said they felt lonely every day.⁴
Pastors and leaders, this is not a public relations problem. This is a mission field.
If all we offer is better religious programming, we will miss the moment. If we step into the ditch with mercy, presence, and a long-term commitment to walk people toward wholeness, we will look a lot like Jesus.
So here is the question I keep asking myself, and I invite you to ask it too.
When my head hits the pillow at night, did I do anything of eternal significance today?
Not, did I stay busy.
Not, did I win the argument.
Not, did I answer all the emails, although may the Lord reward every saint who survives another inbox avalanche.
Did I move toward a person Jesus died for?
Sometimes the answer is yes. Other nights it is no. But the question keeps my heart pointed back toward the road.
Faith That Actually Goes and Does
When Jesus says, “Go,” He is not talking about a seasonal outreach. He is talking about a posture.
Go means today. In your current season, with your current limitations, in your actual life.
It may look like walking across the office to listen to a coworker who is barely holding it together. It may look like slowing down enough to notice the single parent in your kid’s sports circle. It may look like volunteering in a ministry that makes you nervous because it stretches your comfort zone and possibly your calendar, which may already need its own prayer team.
We often wait for perfect clarity or perfect confidence. Scripture rarely gives that luxury. God does not call the equipped. He equips the called. It has never truly been about our ability. It has always been about His availability.
In The Road We Must Travel Again, I tell the story of Jaycee from our hometown region. As a child, she was kidnapped on the way to school. For eighteen years, her mother Terry searched, prayed, posted flyers, and refused to stop looking. When the world tried to move on, she kept going.⁶
Why?
Because the value you place on what is lost is revealed by the price you are willing to pay to find it.
That is what “Go” looks like wrapped in a mother’s skin. Relentless love refuses to sit down while someone is still missing.
But Jesus does not only say, “Go.” He adds, “and do.”
Those two words move the story out of our notebooks and onto our calendars.
Doing rarely feels convenient. It interrupts. It costs. It exposes our excuses.
I learned this as a young believer when my grandfather was given six months to live. I sensed a nudge from the Holy Spirit to go share the Gospel with him. The first visit did not go well. He was angry, cursing God, and wanted nothing to do with faith.
Months later, with only one day left to live, I felt the same nudge again. This time my mom and I stood by his bed, spoke simply about Jesus, and watched a hardened heart soften in his final moments. We prayed with him. He squeezed my hand. Then he stepped into eternity.
I still wear his ring as a reminder. Not of my courage, but of this truth:
Obedience changes more than outcomes. It changes you.
What if I had decided to pray but not go? What if I had let good intentions replace real action?
There are moments in life where the difference between “I should” and “I did” may carry eternal weight.
What Likewise Looks Like When It Grows Up
Finally, Jesus says, “Go and do likewise.”⁵
Likewise does not mean copy and paste the Samaritan’s exact actions. It means carry the same heart.
See what he saw.
Feel what he felt.
Do what love would do if love were wearing your shoes.
In the book, I call this becoming a Jericho Road person. Someone who lives slow enough to notice pain, stays close enough to feel it, is brave enough to act on it, and is strategic enough to get people to places of healing, not just moments of relief.
That is not radical Christianity.
That is normal Christianity.
Few stories capture this better than the reported testimony of John Harper. In April 1912, Harper, a Scottish pastor, boarded the Titanic with his young daughter, headed to preach at Moody Church in Chicago. After the ship struck the iceberg, he made sure his daughter was placed in a lifeboat.⁷
Then he turned back.
Survivor accounts and later retellings describe Harper calling people to Christ as the ship went down. In the freezing Atlantic, he reportedly urged a man clinging to wreckage to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. That man later testified, “I am John Harper’s last convert.”
Details in historic retellings vary, but the enduring witness is clear. Harper spent his final moments doing what he had spent his life doing. He went. He did. He lived with eternity in view.
That is what “likewise” looks like when it grows up.
Pastors and leaders, this is our moment. The road is crowded. The wounds are real. The hunger is measurable. The trust must be rebuilt. The Gospel still works. Jesus is still sending His people toward pain with mercy in their hearts and eternity in their eyes.
So go.
Do.
Likewise.
And may the words we obey outlive the words we merely admire.
To go deeper into this call back to mercy-driven evangelism, order Marc Estes’ newly released book, The Road We Must Travel Again, now at www.marcestes.com.
Endnotes
- Lifeway Research summary of Gallup’s 2025 annual confidence-in-institutions polling, reporting that confidence in “the church or organized religion” rose to 36 percent in 2025 after hovering near record lows, including 31 percent in 2022 and 32 percent in 2023 and 2024.
- Barna Group, “Rising Spiritual Openness in America,” February 10, 2023, based on an October 2022 survey of 2,000 U.S. adults, reporting that 74 percent of U.S. adults say they want to grow spiritually and 44 percent say they are more open to God today than before the pandemic. Primary blog framework and source material provided in “Go And Do Likewise.”
- U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, 2023, reports that “about one-in-two adults in America” had experienced loneliness in recent years before the COVID-19 pandemic further intensified social disconnection.
- American Psychiatric Association, “New APA Poll: One in Three Americans Feels Lonely Every Week,” January 30, 2024, reporting from its Healthy Minds Monthly Poll that 30 percent of U.S. adults said they experienced loneliness at least once a week over the previous year, while 10 percent said they were lonely every day.
- Luke 10:37, New International Version.
- Jaycee Dugard was abducted in 1991 at age 11 and found alive after more than 18 years.
- Moody Church Media, “John Harper’s Last Convert,” and BibleHub’s historical summary of Harper’s Titanic witness. Both note Harper’s final evangelistic witness, though details vary in retellings.