Familiar Verses Seen In a New Light

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I am sitting on the plane to Malaga! I had a bit of a rough start since my luggage was 20 kilos over the limit so I had to pay an additional 1000 NOK (just about the price of my plane ticket - ouch!). Thankfully I still had just enough to time to stop by the duty free shop, pick up my brothers favorite chocolate and board the plane. I was reading God’s Word as usual when I came across verses that everyone is familiar with but they spoke to me with more power than usual.

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Luke 6:31
This also brought to mind the wonderful verse, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
After being on the road for four months with 8 other people in two VW vans I’ve gotten a greater realization of the importance of these commands. Think how wonderful a world this would be if we really followed these instructions. It’s not complicated either. We all know ourselves quite well: how we wanted to be treated, how we want to be spoken to, etc. Many tend to have our focus on ourselves anyway; if we put God’s Words into action our relationships would greatly improve. We simply ask ourselves “would I want” questions. For example, “would I want to be treated this way”, “would I want to be spoken to this way”, “would I want someone to listen to me when I talk”, “would I want someone to open the door for me when I am carrying something”, “would I want someone to put their feet propped up on the seat next to my head”, “would I want everyone else to leave me to work by myself.” Once you have the answer, as Jesus says, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”
Obviously we should have our focus on Jesus and not on ourselves to begin with but this is good training until we get to the point where our eyes are on Him, following Him.

Then Luke goes on to say, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I say?” Not only with those above verses but with many things in life I think we all need to check ourselves with this. Are we claiming Jesus to be our LORD and Savior yet not doing as He commands us? It can be a little rougher with commands such as, “But love your enemies, do good to them, and lead to them without expecting to get anything back.” (Luke 6:35) If you followed Luke 6:31 you would already be following this one even!

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