For several months the Lord has been teaching me about the golden rule: ” And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.” as it is written in Luke 6: 31.
Sometimes in our walk with Christ Yeshua we receive some hard shots. At times it is so painful that the heart is totally broken; then discouragement takes the place of hope, leaving us completely devastated.
A few years ago I had an argument with a brother my husband and I had a lot of affection for. Though we apologized to one another our relation was never fully restored. We kept on visiting from time to time more by obligation than by actual kindness. We would come back home even more discouraged by the coldness of his behavior toward us. Every time we felt like giving up – We were thinking: ‘why should we be the only one to try to make things better?’ Beside, he is a brother, not just some random guy, but a real believer; which made things even more difficult for us to bear and understand. – the Lord would command us to go back and to keep up praying for him.
I have never felt more humiliated, humbled, and helpless than during that time. The more we were trying to obey the Lord, the more he was treating us poorly.
Then one day he started to return our calls. He eventually came home to visit. Today, things are better. We may not be as close as we used to be; more due to our busy schedules and familial obligations; however we try to keep in touch as much as possible.
That was the first time the Lord made me experience the truth behind the “golden rule”.
I understood that it doesn’t matter whether we’re wrong or right.
It doesn’t matter whether we like it or not.
It even doesn’t matter whether our efforts are appreciated or trampled; whether we are humiliated, frustrated, mocked, or just pushed back.
Because in the end, it is not for what the others did that we will give account, but rather for how we responded to them. If the whole purpose of our life is to come close to “the perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” according to Ephesians 4:13 then we should learn from Him. He taught us how to love (Him and the others) by loving us the first.
You would hate for someone to talk behind your back, be the one who will not talk behind others back. You would like for someone to care for you if you where going through, be this sister who cares and share others burden in prayer.
This certainly does not happen without shed of tears and a broken spirit. For this is exactly what the King Himself went through. He came to us and He never stop calling us until the day we realized how miserable we were living in our sinful lives.
So I encourage you. Forgive, give, love, intercede, talk, respect the same way you wish someone would do to you. It will cost you, but know that it will make you even more like the master Yeshua.