How to Love Others

Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Luke 6:31 NIV)

When Jesus taught this, he spoke of our responses to people when they did something to us. He was talking about our response to our enemies. We don’t really have “enemies” these days.  We have people we may not like, but not so much enemies. However, we usually have a lot of people we don’t agree with.  We should apply the same principle to them, right?  For example, there are big disagreements on same sex marriage and oh, dare I say it – politics. How about police brutality?  All of these topics, and more, can cause very hostile conversations.  I’m not saying we should all agree and throw away our opinions and belief systems.  What I’m saying is, we should apply this text when talking to another human beings about it. If we are fighting for something we believe to be true, shouldn’t we model that after the ultimate Truth, Jesus Christ? Jesus didn’t agree with everything everyone said, but he always treated them with respect and kindness.

–Elaine Kapetanakis