The Golden Rule

Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. – Matthew 7.12

As much as people know ‘judge not that you be not judged’ in a critical way people all over the world also know this verse. Jesus refers to this as the sum of the Law and Prophets. It fits right with His summation of the Law with ‘love God and love others.’

‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’ is a universal standard that virtually everyone can accept. It is called the ‘Golden Rule’ for a reason. If the whole world would treat everyone else the way they want to be treated themselves the world would surely be a better place.

Here Jesus specifically applies it to His people. He is telling us how to live in a world where we were never meant to be on the inside track. It is a way that we can show ourselves different in a ‘me first’ world.

We all want to be treated well. We want fairness and good treatment and kindness and charity shown to us. We want forgiveness and understanding. We want patience and longsuffering. We want to be loved.

Knowing that, we need to take it into consideration when we think about how to treat others today. Whoever we encounter today not matter what the situation we need to think about how we would like to be treated if we were in their shoes. That, not our emotions, should determine how we should treat people in every encounter today.

Do unto others exactly what you would have them do to you were the roles reversed.