Another look at 'do unto others'

No man ever got very high by pulling other people down. The intelligent merchant does not knock his competitors. The sensible worker does not knock those who work with him. Don't knock your friends. Don't knock your enemies. Don't knock yourself. (Alfred Lord Tennyson)

“But I say to you people who are listening to me, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Ask God to bless the people who ask for bad things to happen to you. Pray for the people who are mean to you. If someone hits you on the side of your face, let them hit the other side too. If someone takes your coat, don’t stop them from taking your shirt too. Give to everyone who asks you for something. When someone takes something that is yours, don’t ask for it back. Do for others what you want them to do for you. (Luke 6:27-31)

Are we really listening to Jesus? Most of us would admit we listen on occasion, more when things aren't going as we expected, but not as closely at other times. Why is that? We get distracted by life's occurrences and listening when we are distracted is kind of hard. God might say obedience begins with listening, so if we aren't listening all that closely to his instructions for us, are we likely to be obedient when the chips are down? We fail to respond with obedience and then we get upset with ourselves for our 'lack of listening'. Isn't that just like us - knowing what to do, not doing it, then knocking ourselves down a peg because we didn't? 

The heart wants what the heart wants. The only way 'toward' obedience is by having our heart changed. In case you didn't know it, "Nothing can hide its evil as well as the human mind. It can be very sick, and no one really understands it." (Jeremiah 17:9) All heart change begins by asking God to renew (regenerate) our minds. Instead of 'knocking' ourselves for our failures, we should be asking God to change the thing that gets us into all those sticky places of compromise in the first place - the mind. We might just begin to see others and their actions just a bit differently when God begins to change the framework of our thinking. We might just begin to see the framework of OUR actions a bit differently, as well.

We don't begin to 'do' for others or ourselves until we begin to 'think' the way God thinks. The only way to think that way is to submit our minds to his teaching - getting the Word of God into us so it can begin to divide the good from the bad, the unclear from the very obvious, the things not to be trusted from those we can build upon for a strong foundation. Just sayin!