The Golden Rule

I’ve heard this verse many times, but for some reason God spoke it into my heart in a new way last night.

Jesus, teaching His sermon on the mount, says about halfway through:

So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. - Matthew 7:12

It was a chilly winter evening and I was reading this verse and trying to meditate on it. I say trying because it was after a long day of work and chores. Have you had one of those days where you get home late, maybe you have an hour before you should sleep and then do it all again the next day? You contemplate sleeping less just to have some free time. That’s the evening it was for me, I could sense my capacity for anything feeling empty.

“What is the deeper theological point here?” I kept asking myself. How is this rule of life, doing to others what you wish they did to you, connected to the law and the prophets (the Hebrew bible)? As I was contemplating this idea, my wife was busy making chili in the kitchen for a ministry event she had the next morning.

I began to feel this gentle prodding: “It is simple, it means what it means”.

I can’t say I always relent to the whisper of the Spirit’s conviction, my laziness wins out more than I would like to admit. Do not think too highly of me, at times my immaturity startles me. But this time it felt clear, this verse means what it says. If I was having to stay up later and make chili for an event the next morning, would I want help? Probably. You might be more holy than I am, but I needed the conviction.

What does Matthew 7:12 mean? It means sometimes you help drain beans and stir meat when you don’t want to.

Why? Because Jesus has perfectly lived out the golden rule. Consider how He has sacrificed for us. Loved us when it was not convenient. Extended patience, mercy, and help. He is inviting us to be like Him. To be reflections of His way of loving to those in our lives.

If we want to grow as followers of Jesus we must see the connection between His teachings and our real lives. We must implement them. It will always be costly. It will always feel at war with our fleshly desires. But that is when you know He is changing you. Growing you. Sanctifying you.

Where is Jesus inviting you into living out the golden rule? To do unto others as you wish they would do for you?

Trying to be less lazy,

Josh.