Why You Might Need To Revisit The Golden Rule
Growing up, I constantly heard the golden rule preached: “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” But it didn't have a stronghold on my behaviour, the way other concepts like karma, did.
However, I recently revisited the golden rule and noticed it has a deeper meaning: it also refers to how God treats us.
God Treats Us According To How We Treat Others
This is not to say that God does not love us the same way. He loves everyone because His love is not conditional. However, what is conditional is how He interacts with each of us.
2 Samuel 22: 26-28 showcases this:
If we are kind/merciful to others then He shows us the merciful side of Himself.
If we are pure (hearted), He shows us how pure He is.
On the flip side, if we are proud or take joy in twisting His ways, He shows the side of Himself that is an enemy to that behaviour/mindset.
However, this is not condemnation.
Rather, it is a result of our focus (or lack thereof) on our relationship with God. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
Meaning that the more we look at God, the more we become like Him. Since God is love we end up becoming like love.
But this also means that the more unloving we become, the more God’s nature demands justice for the misfortune that follows every act that is not fuelled by love.
The Parable Of The Unforgiving Servant
Jesus talks about this concept when He tells the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:21-35).
In it, this servant was taken before the king because of his unpaid debt. It was so large that the king threatened to throw his whole family in prison and sell off his possessions - but the man begged for mercy and the King obliged.
Only for the servant to roam the streets looking for the person who owed him money - throwing him in jail when he couldn’t repay his debt.
The other servants saw what this servant had done and reported it to the King. Now the king was incensed because this man had the gall to be harsh on someone for the same ill he had been forgiven of… so the king sent the servant to be tortured until he could pay back the debt.
Jesus ended the story with this warning: this was how God would treat us if we did not forgive people from our heart.
Takeaways
The servant only got punished because the other servants told on him. This reveals two things:
We are expected to carry forward the love, grace, and mercy we have received from God.
How we treat others matters since it is directly proportional to what we have received from God.
To clarify: this is not meant to be a fear-based reminder. God loves each one of us. Therefore this is a reminder to be our most loving selves because not doing so:
Hurts the offender - unloving actions poison our hearts.
Hurts the bystanders watching - science shows that watching random acts of kindness greatly improves our emotional health and well-being.
Hurts the people who have nothing to do with the situation by creating a ripple effect we cannot control.
Mercy has long-reaching consequences.