Matthew 7:12 “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

Hello readers!

Well, after ending the year and starting the new with a burst of blogs, suddenly they’re few and far between!

But that’s ok, I have been going through a time of needing to think and consider things.

Oh, and I’ve also been sick this past week, and am just now feeling better, but a bit tired after it all.

I have a thought from Matthew 7 which I had last year and I’ve called this blog “before the golden rule”.

Everyone knows what the golden rule is! “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!”

In other words, treat people like you would like to be treated… and that’s a pretty good rule for life don’t you think?

Most people think so… because I see many non Christians that believe or at least hold to this principle in their own lives, so you don’t have to be a believer to think this is a good rule for living.

And this rule is one I believe we need to actually live by rather than just saying it because it sounds good.

I’m more and more realizing that Christianity isn’t so much a set of beliefs in our heads or a religious discipline and tradition we uphold… it’s a new creature in Christ Jesus.

In other words, when is what we believe going to change how we live and act?

God cares about the type of person we are, and what kind of people are we? Are we people who actually live by the golden rule?

See, we can have all the faith in the world… yet “and have not charity, I am nothing.”

There are so many Christians who really are unaffected and unchanged by what they claim they believe, they can be quite nasty or untrustworthy and really very unregenerate in their thinking and living… and I don’t want to be like that, I need God’s grace.

So I called this “before the golden rule” because one day I was reading this and I noticed that this verse starts with a “therefore”!

What the “therefore” means is that what Jesus has to say here, the golden rule, precedes from the thoughts of previous verses.

Have you read the previous verses? I was reading them last year and they were quite important verses for me for where I am at in life…

The previous verses are about prayer, about asking, seeking and knocking, and about how God promises to answer prayer and give us good things that we really want and desire in our lives.

Hopefully God has given you good godly desires. He has, amazingly, given me some I believe. Taken me a while to get there. Because growing up I don’t think many of my desires were that godly, but over time he has been changing me a bit where he has worked some good things into my thought processes.

I believe as God changes us over time, he does that in all of our lives, as growing as a Christian should be becoming more and more Christlike.

I was thinking about how the Bible calls us “sons of God”… could people say that of you and me? Do we look and live like his sons?

Or do we look and live like the sons of somebody else… perhaps even the devil as Jesus warned of?

But it’s so interesting that the golden rule is preceded by Jesus Christ’s teaching about answered prayer, and the picture of asking, seeking and knocking… that’s someone who is really seeking an answer from God.

If you’ve ever really wanted something from God, you should then be sensitive to the needs that other people have also, because who is there who doesn’t need something badly from God?

And not just that but then Jesus is promising and assuring us in prayer  that God isn’t going to short change us, he’s not going to give us a stone for bread or serpent for fish.

We can tend to not trust that God actually cares for us, that he’s up there not really with our best interests at heart.

And yet God sets the example for the heavenly gifts he gives. He does answer prayer, and he does give us what we want and need for our Christian life, and he goes above and beyond with it.

And in light of that, after we go through praying and receiving answered prayer and seeing and believing and loving God for how good and faithful he is to us… that then should produce a “therefore”.

How God treats us should change how we treat other people.

I noticed this verse recently in Psalm 7:4 “If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy:)”… this is David writing and I thought as I read this… hey David didn’t pass that verse, think about how he treated Uriah.

Didn’t Uriah do good by David and yet David treated him horrifically poorly?

When we enjoy God’s treatment of us, and God blessed David immeasurably, this is then meant to affect how we treat others.

For instance, because we have been forgiven, so we should forgive.

And in fact that’s really a sign that we have been forgiven, the fact that we forgive also… that’s proof of salvation (see Parable of the Unforgiving Servant in Matthew 8).

So see, what we go through and experience in our lives is meant to change us and the way we interact with others!

And so hopefully you consider the thought of prayer and answered prayer linked with the golden rule, because the golden rule flows from this thought.

See how God hears us, see how God answers us, see how God treats the cry of our heart to him, see how he doesn’t withhold the very best from us…. When is that going to affect how we treat others?

If you’ve ever truly desired something from God and waited and hoped for it, that’s going to change how you see other people who may not yet have what you have received, which you know the value of.

And so I hope this little truth from God’s word helps in what God is trying to do in your and my life, which is change how we see people, and how we treat people… in light of how good and gracious God has been to us.

This is a world with wants, needs and desires just like we have, and God is our dear heavenly Father, and as he is so good to us, let us also be good to other people, and truly have God’s best for them in our hearts.

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