Do to others as you would have them do to you. – Luke 6:31 (NIV)
Today’s Bible verse is one that is pretty hard for me to do. My natural reaction when someone wrongs me is to respond in anger. I want to defend myself, get even or just make things right. However, in today’s verse we see that we are supposed to do to others as you would have them do to you.
That means that instead of taking the best food, we should consider others and let them have a good piece too. Or if we’re going through a door, consider letting the person near you go first. Things like that aren’t easy to do, but they do go a long way toward what Jesus was talking about in Luke 6:31.
Even when it seems like loving someone when they haven’t been nice to you is impossible, it’s not as difficult when we realize that this is the way God loves us. We deserved hell, but we got grace. We do all kinds of things that are sinful all the time. And God is full of mercy toward us. When we really begin to focus on God’s goodness and His mercy toward us, it makes our response to others easier.
If we really begin to understand how much God loves us, then it makes loving others easy. We realize that we can love others because we’ve been given so much from God.
So today, take some time to really think about what this verse means. How it helps us to walk in love toward others when we focus first on God’s love to us.
