MOVING AWAY FROM COMFORT TOWARDS OTHERS NEEDS THROUGH THE GOLDEN RULE Part 3

“So [or: therefore] whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12


I've been writing about moving away from seeking our own comfort and instead beginning a lifestyle of moving towards the needs of others by living the Golden Rule as taught by Jesus. So how do we live out the Golden Rule? How do we move away from seeking our own personal comfort to pursue moving towards the needs of others?


Notice that our Lord considers that the Golden Rule is applicable "whatever". Some translations use "in everything." In other words, it is to be a constant reminder in every setting we face, in every relationship, in every demand upon us that we are to "treat people in the same way you want them to treat you."


So Jesus is saying, “In the light of what I’ve just said about the Father’s love and care for you, do unto others as you would have them do to you.” But let me add a paraphrase, “Do unto others as God has done to you.” How has God done to you? Oh for our memories to be refreshed and our eyes to see what the Father has done and is doing! Every good gift has come to you from the Father above. Treating others the way you want to be treated involves an amazing, profound, supernatural change in the way you make choices. I don’t have to be enslaved and fearful, anxious, selfish, greedy, miserly, or withholding anymore. For what we would want others to do to and for us God has already done and is doing in Christ!


Has God shown you grace? Give grace! Has God cared for you? Care for others! Has God loved you? Love others! Has God forgiven you? Forgive others! Has God been generous with you? Give generously! Has God met your needs? Give to others needs! Brothers and sisters, people as designed by God to receive from us what we have received from Him and to expand and enlarge our joy in Him. In short, we are to give freely give to others-through every practical means available-whatever we have found and received from this generous God. The inflow of God’s grace to you becomes of the outflow of God’s grace through you towards others!


Is it no wonder why the scriptures say things like, “We love because He has first loved us?” “Freely you have received, freely give.” “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” “The love of God has and is being continuously poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me…Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”


In summary, there are five keys to living out the Golden Rule:

1. Remember how has God treated you, how He has met and will meet your needs.


We were created to know much about God, we were created to feel much for God; and we were created to live much for God. A deep and growing biblical knowledge of God and Christ and the cross and salvation and faith and all the promises for us in Christ can give freedom to move away from our selfish desires for comfort, ease, and security from this life. Therefore, you need to fall on your face and plead that God would open your eyes to see the compelling glory of Jesus Christ.

2. Ask God to open your eyes to needs all around you, to open doors, to help you to do what left to yourself you cannot do, and to launch you into moving away from comfort and towards need.


“May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ” (2 Thessalonians 3:5) “But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?” (1 John 3:15)


3. Look around and see the needs around you.

4. Use your imagination


How would you like others to treat you? How can you respond to the need? Imagination is a Christian duty. You can't apply Jesus' golden rule without it. Jesus, unlike others in his day, did not say “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.” He said, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” That is even more radical, because it means that we are to become creatively proactive in our relationships—we must imagine ourselves in their place and imagine what we would like done to us. Compassionate, sympathetic, helpful love hangs much on the imagination of the lover.

5. Be available to let the inflow of God’s love be released into an outflow of freely giving to others what God has given to you

O my brothers and sisters, if God is your Father through the price that Jesus paid with his own blood, and if you trust him to give you freely and sufficiently everything you need to live on this earth for His glory, the answers to those questions and many more will shape your life into a life moving away from your own quest for comfort and towards others need rooted in the faith that your Father will give only good things through Jesus to those who ask. May Christ will become increasingly precious to you. May God encourage you and enable you by his Spirit to build your life on the mercies of God revealed in Jesus Christ that God graciously pours in you to meet your deepest needs. Receive these mercies. Entrust your life to them. Embrace them for the forgiveness of your sins and all the help you need to live a life of generous mercy, grace, and move your life away from comfort and towards need doing to others what God has done to you!


Pastor Bill