07/16/2024
Top Eight Tips For Doing Unto Others:
Taking The Golden Rule of Jesus To The Next Level
The following are eight principles that work in almost all circumstances as we follow through on our commitment to treat others as we wish to be treated. I intended to use this in Sunday’s sermon but totally spaced it.
1. Listen long and hard—try to understand what someone is communicating before you begin thinking about your response or sharing your own ideas and experiences
2. Go out of your way to be helpful when others are in obvious need of a helping hand. (Being inconvenienced is the hallmark of faithful disciples of Jesus.)
3. Be twice as patient with others as you’d like them to be patient with you. (You can never go wrong with adding extra patience).
4. Don’t read ulterior motives into the actions of others. Assume the best about others as you’d want them to assume the best about you.
5. Offer a specific act of support and caring when someone is going through a rough patch. Avoid an offer of “If you need anything”. Instead try, ‘What can I do to be helpful? Mow your lawn, cook your dinner, walk your dog, etc.’
6. Be encouraging and positive just as you enjoy being surrounded by encouragement and optimism. Look to ‘catch’ the people around you being good.
7. Admit your mistakes readily and apologize immediately when you’ve hurt someone’s feelings or done something unworthy of your calling in Christ.
8. Offer to pray for someone and follow through with it. Taking prayer for others seriously is a powerful way to care for another. (Whether folks believe in God or not, making the offer will help them believe that you want what is best for them. Prayer is our way of expressing that.)
Archived Posts
One More Piece of Unsolicited Advice
I had one too many examples yesterday. Here’s the "Ask Pastor Tim" scenario that didn’t make the cut for Sunday’s sermon: (read more)
Not If, But When, the Crisis Comes
One of the best Bible commentators alive today is N.T. Wright or Tom Wright. When reflecting on the parable of the wise and foolish maidens, he wrote this:...
What I wanted to say
but ran out of time this Sunday
Here is the benediction I was going to use before discovering the excellent MLK Jr. video.
The Storm that Comes To Us as Helplessness
I want to share with you a small portion of my conversation with Artificial Intelligence online. Some of you know, I use Chat-GPT as a thoughtful sounding board for the questions and insights I’m working with on whatever scriptures I’m studying each week. What follows is an example of those discussions...
One Final Scene About Scrooge
There was one more scene in Dickens’s novel that reveals something of what has happened to Scrooge over the years. I did not have time to share it on Sunday, but I believe it reveals a great deal about the regrets in Scrooge’s life....
What Jacob Marley Would Do,
If He Could Do It…
I thought about using the following for a benediction—since Jacob Marley was warning Scrooge about the danger of loving money and what it could buy. Ends up with the Cantata and everything else going on, I didn’t have the time. So here is what you might have heard if the sermon itself was 5 minutes shorter!
A Confirming Word on Old King Herod
I just want to echo what Rick said in his fine sermon yesterday (Nov. 23). Herod was a ruthless tyrant and skilled politician. When the Magi don’t report back to him, he decides to kill all the male children of Bethlehem under the age of 2. That’s one paranoid dude.