Just as you want others to do for you, do the same for them. LUKE 6:31 (CSB)

_____________________________________________________________________________

One of my favorite leadership books is The 4 Disciplines of Execution: Achieving Your Wildly Important Goals by Chris McChesney and Sean Covey. To get the results you want, they say, take the right lead measures. I think of this idea when I read the Golden Rule. The Message paraphrase of this verse puts it this way:

Jesus then makes it clear that you are to do this, to be nice, to everybody (verses 32-35). Then he gives us the reason why: “Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful,” (verse 36). 

Today is a good day to practice this rule of life. In every situation, with every person, treat other persons the way you want them to treat you. Be nice to everybody. Taking the right lead measures almost always leads to desirable results. Sometimes those results are immediate. Sometimes they take a little longer. 

Let’s be honest. Some people are jerks. They are mean. They are unkind. Jesus says we are to lead with love even when we encounter such unlovely and seemingly unlovable people. Some people would poke you in the eye if you gave them a million dollars. How do we relate to people who disprove the whole idea of taking the right lead measures in search of right outcomes?

There are already enough jerks in the world. You do not have to increase their ranks. Be nice even when, especially when, others treat you with disrespect. Truth bomb: You will never have to be more merciful to anyone than God has been merciful to you. 

You are godly when you are merciful. 

Godliness shows up in taking the right lead measures, treating others the way we want to be treated, and in the right response when things do not go as planned, when we are merciful. 

Do the right thing first time, every time. Be merciful when things do not work out the way you intended. 

Any questions?

_____________________________________________________________________________

I will take the right lead actions.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Our Father, empower me to treat others with the kindness, concern, and compassion I want for myself. Make me ever more merciful to those who do not treat me the right way. Give me next-level mercy for those people because they need it as much as I do. Thank you for your mercy which has chosen not to rub me out, but to fill me full of meaning and purpose and increasing measures of grace. Amen.