Luke 6:31 Do to others as you would have them do to you. (NIV)
I once heard someone say that the golden rule is “the one who has the gold makes the rules.” This is a very worldly perspective of one the most precious commands from God on how we should live our lives. However, even this worldly view has some truth to it, just read Psalm 24:1 it says “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” So I guess even when the world thinks that it is wise the word of God has a way of putting it into proper perspective. Since God does have ALL of the gold in the world then God does get to make ALL the rules. This verse of scripture is referred to as the golden rule because it is golden, as in an extremely valuable commodity for everyday living.
Jesus commands that we should govern our lives this way and he does this because He knows that if we truly lived by this rule, both literally and figuratively, that we would live out our Christian faith to perfection. The two greatest commands, found in Mark 12:29-31 tell us to love God with everything we have and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, are tied to this scripture and life principle. To master the two great commandments we must put the golden rule into effect. In order to love God and love our neighbor we must at some point try to put ourselves in their shoes. To truly love God we must at least try to see things from God’s perspective as to why He would desire the fulfillment of such a command. Even from our very limited vantage point we can see why He would desire that we love Him the way He commands and this also applies to others as well.
The golden rule is absolutely and unequivocally perfect in all that it requires. When you put yourself in someone else’s position you begin to see the importance of how your treatment of someone else can and will affect you. Even those that hate themselves and go through times of self-loathing cannot run away from the depth of this command because it causes you to dig deeper than what is on the surface and go to a place within your heart where one’s true desire lives. Every human being desires to be treated fairly, with respect and receive true love. As a matter of fact most angry and self-loathing people are that way because they did not receive one of the aforementioned desires and are out for vengeance. When we follow the golden rule we cannot go wrong. But remember it does not promise that when you do to others as you would have them do to you that others will treat you the same way.
The command from Jesus in this is for how we are to behave and that is not contingent upon others behavior. The golden rule allows us to participate in making the world a better place. If we do our part and others do not do theirs at least the world is made better by you doing your part. The purpose of this is to put us in a better position of representing Christ who looked at our needs for a Savior and took on that role no doubtedly because if He were a sinner in need of a Savior He would want someone to die for His sins. We should not do anything that we honestly would not want done to ourselves. I am convinced that “love thy neighbor as thyself” exists because God knew how much we would love ourselves and He challenged us to have that same love for others. That applies here as well, God knows how we desire to be treated and He is challenging us to channel that desire in how we treat others. Plain and simple let this biblical principle govern your life; all of the things that you do not want people to do to you then do not do them to others and all of things that you desire for people to do to you then try and do that for others (as long as it is legal, ethical, moral and pleasing in the sight of God).
Remember to follow the golden rule; you might be doing it for others, but actually you are doing it for yourself. You will be amazed at how what you do for or to others will also happen in your own life. Be careful of the seeds that you plant for you will have to eat the fruit they bear some day.
I once heard someone say that the