Christian Challenges

Treat Others How You Want To Be Treated

"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." Matthew 7:12.

Blessed results would appear as the fruit of such a course. "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." [Matthew 7:2] Here are strong motives which should constrain us to love one another with a pure heart, fervently. Christ is our example. He went about doing good. He lived to bless others. Love beautified and ennobled all His actions. We are not commanded to do to ourselves what we wish others to do unto us; we are to do unto others what we wish them to do to us under like circumstances. The measure we mete is always measured to us again.¹

In your association with others, put yourself in their place. Enter into their feelings, their difficulties, their disappointments, their joys, and their sorrows. Identify yourself with them, and then do to them as, were you to exchange places with them, you would wish them to deal with you. This is the true rule of honesty. It is another expression of the law.²

Have we wealth, or even the comforts of life, then we are under the most solemn obligation to care for the suffering sick, the widow, and the fatherless exactly as we would desire them to care for us were our condition and theirs to be reversed.³

The golden rule teaches, by implication, the same truth which is taught elsewhere in the Sermon on the Mount, that "with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." That which we do to others, whether it be good or evil, will surely react upon ourselves, in blessing or in cursing. Whatever we give, we shall receive again. The earthly blessings which we impart to others may be, and often are, repaid in kind. What we give does, in time of need, often come back to us in fourfold measure in the coin of the realm. But, besides this, all gifts are repaid, even in this life, in the fuller inflowing of His love, which is the sum of all heaven's glory and its treasure. And evil imparted also returns again. Everyone who has been free to condemn or discourage, will in his own experience be brought over the ground where he has caused others to pass; he will feel what they have suffered because of his want of sympathy and tenderness.⁴

It is the love of God toward us that has decreed this. He would lead us to abhor our own hardness of heart and to open our hearts to let Jesus abide in them. And thus, out of evil, good is brought, and what appeared a curse becomes a blessing.⁵

"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Ephesians 4:31, 32.

As we go about our daily lives may we open our eyes and look at the people around us and see what is happening in their lives. May we take time to do for others what we would like done for us if we were in their shoes. You never know, one day it could be you who needs comfort or help.

References:

Testimonies to the Churches Vol 2 by E. G. White, page 136 par. 1.

Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings by E. G. White, page 134 par. 3.

Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings by E. G. White, page 136 par. 1.

Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings by E. G. White, page 136 par. 2.
Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings by E. G. White, page 136 par. 3.

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