At the moment, I just have a brief thought that's been circling through the rat-maze of my brain for a few days now and that thought is all about how to treat people. I hope it's enough to satisfy you for another indeterminably long while.
When I consider how I should behave myself in regards to other homo sapiens, the phrase "what would Jesus do?" comes to mind. But I gotta tell ya, something's never sat right with me about that idea, and since I've been thinking about it recently, I now know what it is that's wrong: me. Before I go any further do not think that this is some sort of pity party on my blog; when I say that I'm what's wrong, I mean that I really have no idea what Jesus would do were he in my shoes. I'm a flawed human being prone to making mistakes as much as any sinner and I have a long ways to go yet before God's finished perfecting me. As such, it is an awfully big (not to mention self-righteous) assumption to think I know what Jesus would do in my place.
God instead gave me the scripture found in Matthew 25:45 which says, "Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, in as much as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me." In this passage, if you read it in context (which you always should) Jesus is talking about treating people right. But there's something in the message here that never really hit me until now, Jesus wasn't telling us to try to think or act like he does; he was telling us not to put him in our place but to put him in our neighbor's place.
So instead of thinking to yourself "what would Jesus do?" think "what would I do for Jesus?" The Bible is riddled with messages of love, specifically giving love, and if you think about it, Jesus may represent a lot of things to all the different kinds of people that there are, but to those who have a real relationship with him, among whatever else there may be Jesus represents love. So the next time you see someone struggling with something, put Jesus in their place (Jesus did come to earth and live as a human being so he is fully acquainted with the kinds of struggle we people go through) and think about how you would treat him. I would hope that you would not let your pride, prejudice, fear, anger, etc. get in the way of letting Jesus know how much you love him. When you see someone struggling with say... a heavy emotional burden, imagine that they're Jesus; would you say to Jesus "get over it" or "it doesn't matter how you feel, you need to get moving anyway?" I wouldn't. Why? Because I love Jesus and I would never treat someone I truly loved in such a manner. Now imagine that someone is crying, or shouting, or getting frustrated and impatient, or feeling lonely, or about to do something that you know they're going to regret, and ask yourself, "what would I do for Jesus?"
One last thing: in the first part of this post, I mentioned that I am imperfect, flawed, and prone to mistakes. That's all true of course, and not just for me but for a lot of people. But I recall that the Bible has something to say on that as well, "Fear is not in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment. He that fears is not perfected in love." (1John 4:18). The whole verse is great of course but it's those last three words that stand out to me: perfected in love. I may be flawed but I don't need to be so forever, and the road to perfection requires living in the love that Jesus taught us about.
Well, that's all of it but I hope you found it edifying. I have to go now because Sunday morning church service is about to start and I have to finish getting ready. Have a blessed day!
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