I will pray for others and treat them with kindness, respect, and compassion
“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”
When asked what the greatest commandment in the scriptures was, Jesus had this to say, Matthew 22:37-40, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Jesus´s words put loving others at a similar level as loving God himself and show that following any of the commandments can be categorized as either a way of loving God or loving others. So in everything that you do, think about whether it shows love to God, the most important, and then if it shows love to others.
Be careful though as without showing love to others you can’t show love to God. John put it this way when talking about the love of God, 1 John 4:20-21, “If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
Jesus spoke many times on the importance of how you treat others and what is known as The Golden Rule can be found in several of the gospels. Luke 6:31, “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Matthew 7:12, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”
Luke 6:32-33, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.”
1 Thessalonians 5:15, “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.”
1 Peter 4:8-10, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
1 John 4:7-12, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
Learning to love others and put them first can take time, and doesn’t normally happen overnight, it is vital that you continue to learn, the books below can help you in that journey.
