And In Summary....

In Matthew 7:12 Jesus sums up the whole of the law and the prophets when he says "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets."

Sounds easy enough, doesn't it? Just treat others the way you want to be treated and we will fulfill the law. Yet even with such a simple sounding maxim, we are incapable of doing this. Consider the pizza. You and your family sit down to a piping hot pepperoni pie. Do you take the first piece? Do you scope out which piece is best and go for that one? Or do you wait until everyone else has chosen and then you choose from what remains? Do you do that cheerfully or begrudgingly? And if we can be tripped up by something so innocuous as a pizza, what do we do when it is something really important?

But it's not about how easy or how hard doing the right thing is, it's about the right thing. Jesus teaches us to place others needs ahead of our own, to give more than asked, to be lavish in our generosity; even as He is lavish in his generosity. He calls us to the higher standard of treating others as we would like to be treated.

I want God's forgiveness, I must forgive all others.
I want God's love, I must love all others.
I want God's blessings, I must bless all others.
I want God's family, I must be God's family to all others.

It's easy to want those things and to just skip past our own obligations, that's the "wide gate" of the world. But where I want to go is at the end of the narrow path and beyond the "narrow gate".

Let's not fall in with the crowd today as they jam through the wide gate. Let's humbly and gently take someone by the elbow and lead them to the narrow path. And let's be sure to set our own feet securely onto that path ourselves.

Peace,
Carl