love your neighbour as yourself - Mark 12.31

Treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself. Surely Christs words represent the best reference point that exists to the question ' what does it take to live as a Christian? And isn't the ramifications of our actions with respect to others the one thing we so often forget. I think we would pretty much all agree that bashing an old lady on the head and stealing her handbag is not how we would want to be treated ourselves. But take adultery people often talk as if it only effects the couple involved but the pain and suffering of betrayal is not just felt by the injured party but also by children, friends and relatives. Or social media where unkind words seem to have become the accepted norm. So often we never stop to think that everything in life is interconnected and comes with a consequence and that these consequences can go far beyond what we expect or can possibly imagine.

If we look back on our own lives we can all count occasions where we have been hurt by the actions of another where possibly the other party didn't realize that we would be wounded or the effect that a careless word or action might have on us. They didn't ask the key question would we like this done to ourselves?

But I think it a little tougher than this. How often in church have we listened to an appeal and literally walked away. Being able to say I went to church on Sunday is doubtless good but I'm very sure that our actions towards others ' the glass of water' is higher on Christs check list than our appearance in church. As Billy Graham so memorably wrote' in heaven I'm sure I'll be shocked by who is there and not there.'

Of course the other side of the coin is ' as ye sow shall ye reap' look back at life how many times have we mistreated our neighbors and ended up suffering the same mistreatment ourselves . God is not mocked the lessons he wants us to learn are not hidden you don't have to look under the table the food is placed on the top.