In his delightful book, Faith Hope and Hilarity, Dick Van Dyke tells of a little boy in Philadelphia who was asked to write his favourite biblical truth on the blackboard. He wrote, ‘Do one to others as others do one to you.’
This was not quite what Jesus meant when he said: ‘In everything do unto others what you would have them do unto you…’ (Matthew 7:12). Or, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’.
It is not easy to love others as much as we love ourselves. When you think about it, we really do a great deal for ourselves. John wrote–
If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen (1 John 4:20).
The plain fact is that, whatever professions we may make to the contrary, if we don’t love our neighbours as ourselves, we don’t really love God. Whether we like it or not, this is true. To love God is to love one another. It’s as simple as that.
To read more on this topic see Living in the Image of God, Barry Chant (Miranda: Tabor, 2012 available in eBook and Paperback) from which this edited extract is taken.