The Golden Rule

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

THE GOLDEN RULE

Matt 7:9-12

9 "Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! 12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

NIV

Here is where we get that “Golden Rule” we heard so many times over the years. But before we get into that, we should consider for a moment that fact that we are evil, at least in comparison to God. We know that we do not want to think of ourselves as evil for we are Christians, and we do those “Good deeds” that we are so proud of. Plus, the fact that we have been given the right to be called children of God, so how then can we be evil. Yet the truth is we are human and as such are not perfect, or rather we have not attained perfection and therefore we have some sin in our lives and would then be considered evil. However, the point is even in our fallen condition we still give our children what they ask for. We treat our children with love and care and want to give them the best life we can. We certainly would not give them a stone if they asked for bread. This is how God is with us. He wants to give us the best life he can, and being God, he can give us the most wonderful live that we have. Again, all we need to do is ask him and he will give us good gifts. Of course, once again, we cannot expect those good gifts if we are asking with wrong motives, that is so we can spend all those gifts on ourselves and thinking only of ourselves. However, here is where that “Golden Rule” kicks in. Because we can expect good gifts from God when we ask him instead of thinking only of ourselves, we are to treat other people as we would expect them to treat us. We are certain that we would want others to treat us fairly, with honesty, honor our person, listen when we have something to say, do us no harm, and generally treat us well. That would mean this is how we are to treat others. We would treat them well, and that means all others which is to say that we cannot pick and chose who we should be nice to and who we can be nasty to, who we can listen to and who we can ignore. It almost sounds like if we want God to be good to us. However, we know that God loved us even before we loved him, and His love for us is unconditional. But this “Golden Rule” should be a result of God’s love for us and the way he treats us. That is just the way we are to live, with love and grace toward others, fulfilling the Golden Rule.