Do to others as you would like them to do to you. (Luke 6:27-31).Christianity is a system of contradictions. It is a war, yet the adherents are peaceful. The leader is a king, yet is a subject himself. It is life, yet is based on death. It encourages perfection, yet admits it is unattainable.
The whole attitude of Christian living is summed up here. Treat people nice. And the Bible goes on to say in other places, do this even when they don’t treat you nice.
The Bible says that the Christian is on a proactive approach to living. He or she doesn’t do things that will cause others to be hurt. It is a positive way to look at things. It is not a reaction, or a warning not to do what others do. It is a lifestyle, loving others.
And it is hard to do. Without the help and the movement of God, it is impossible.
After all, how can you go through life automatically treating people like you wish they would treat you?
Jesus was a very confrontational man, even occasionally to the point of being violent. He was eventually killed because of this. He did what he wanted to do regardless of whether or not he hurt the feelings of those around him.
Yet he says do to others as you would like them to do to you.
Whatever he did, he would want others to do if he were in their place. He would want them to talk about the holiness of God even if it hurt his feelings. He would want them to tell of the better way, even though the listeners liked the present way.
He would want to see that we loved God enough to do the hard things. He would want to be shown the love of God, even if he were angry. He did what he would want someone else to do if he were in the listener position.
Jesus was a model of godly behavior, even when others didn’t consider it godly.
If I were wondering if it were correct to have the temple turned into a yard sale, I would want to see someone say no. If I were wondering if it were a good idea to feed a whole bunch of people, I would want to see someone do it. If I were wondering if the hypocritical leadership was of God or not, I would want to hear someone say yes or no. He modeled God.
He did what needed to be done whether people liked it or not. And he knew that if he were in our position and we in his, he would want to see this.
Loving, yes. Compassionate, yes. But also with the strength of God behind him.
A different picture of Jesus than our traditional one, but absolutely realistic.
And I want to be like him.
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You are welcome to say anything you want as long as it is nice. If I don't like it, or it is ugly, I will take it off, place it into the garbage disposal, grind it up, and allow it to be flushed into the Gulf of Mexico where it will be eaten by a fish and then excreted where it will lie on the bottom of the ocean until it is covered up by other comments.