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Matthew 7:12. So whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets. With these words (Jesus) concludes the teaching He has been giving in these three chapters (Matthew 5-7), and wraps it all up in a little package where it can all be found. Thus everyone can put it in his bosom and keep it; it is as if He were saying: “Would you like to know what I have been preaching, and what Moses and all the Prophets teach you? I shall tell it to you so briefly and put it in such a way that you dare not complain about its being too long or too hard to remember.” … How could it be put more succinctly and clearly than in these words? The trouble is that the world and our (sinfulness) refuse to let us ponder what He says and measure our lives against the standard of this teaching. We let it go in one ear and out the other. If we always measured our lives and actions against this standard, we would not be so coarse and heedless in what we do, but we would always have enough to do. We could become our own teachers, teaching ourselves what we ought to do; and we would not have to chase after holy lives and holy works, nor would we need many lawyers and law books. This is stated briefly and learned easily, if we only were diligent and serious in acting and living according to it. Let me illustrate it with a somewhat crude example. … If you have a wife, a daughter, or a maid, you would not want her to be corrupted or to acquire a bad reputation. You want everyone to respect her, to treat her well, and to speak the best about her. Then why are you so perverse that you yearn for someone else’s wife and want to corrupt her yourself? Why do you not help to improve her reputation, instead of finding pleasure in talking behind her back and slandering her? Similarly, you would not want anyone to do you injury or harm, to malign you, or to do anything like that. Then why do you yourself violate the rule and standard that you demand of others and want them to keep? How can you judge, criticize, and condemn someone else if he does not treat you that way? Why do you refuse to obey your own rule? Go through all the commandments of the Second Table this way, and you will find that this is really the summary of all possible sermons, as He Himself says here. … I am convinced, … that it would be influential and productive … if we only got into the habit of remembering (this rule) and were not so lazy and inattentive. I do not regard anyone as so coarse or so evil that he would shirk this or be offended at it if he really kept it in mind. It was certainly clever of Christ to state it this way. The only example He sets up is ourselves, and He makes this as intimate as possible by applying it to our heart, our body and life, and all our members. … Just guide yourself by this, and you will be more wise and learned than all the skill and all the books of the lawyers. … (As real life example for those who remember and honor the Golden Rule:) If you are a manual laborer, you find that the Bible has been put into your workshop, into your hand, into your heart. It teaches and preaches how you should treat your neighbor. Just look at your tools—at your needle or thimble, your beer barrel, your goods, your scales or yardstick or measure—and you will read this statement inscribed on them. Everywhere you look, it stares at you. Nothing that you handle every day is so tiny that it does not continually tell you this, if you will only listen. Indeed, there is no shortage of preaching. You have as many preachers as you have transactions, goods, tools, and other equipment in your house and home. All this is continually crying out to you: “Friend, use me in your relations with your neighbor just as you would want your neighbor to use his property in his relations with you.” In this way, you see, this teaching would be inscribed everywhere we look, and engraved upon our entire life, if we only had ears willing to hear it and eyes willing to see it. It is being presented to us in such abundance that no one can give the excuse that he did not know it or that it was not announced and preached to him often enough. But we are like the vipers, which stop up their ears and become deaf when someone tries to trap them. We refuse to see or hear what is inscribed on our own heart and thoughts, and we plunge in recklessly: “Ha! What do I care about somebody else? I may do business with my own possessions as I please, and sell them for as much as I can get for them. Who is going to stop me?” That is what Squire Skinflint and Squire Squeeze do at the market. If someone rebukes and threatens them from the Word of God, they simply laugh and mock and become firmer in their wickedness. … Those who want to be pious, who fear God, and who think about how to live and behave, must know that they simply have no right to do business with their property and manage it as they please, as though they themselves were the lords of all. They have the obligation to carry on their business in a proper and orderly way; this is why there is territorial and civil law. That is how everyone would want his neighbor to treat him; therefore he should also treat his neighbor that way, taking and offering only good merchandise. Christ means this commandment seriously, and He will not let it be made free or optional, as though one could obey it or disobey it with impunity.

Forgiveness is not just an action, it is a state of being for Christians. Our God sent His only Son to die in order that we are forgiven our sins against the Holy Throne of God. If we sinners are forgiven, then as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, we must follow and obey our King and forgive others. If we do not forgive, then we are not loyal to the King, and we are out of step with the Kingdom. This should be a cause for alarm for those who refuse to forgive. This should be a call for soul searching and prayer, why won't you forgive your brother? Is the sin too great? Is it greater than the pile of sins that God forgives you for on a daily basis? Has you heart become hard? Prayer, and counseling (preferably with a Christian counselor or Pastor) is the first step to healing. But what if you want to forgive, but just can not? What if the hurt is so painful that you are not able to forgive at this time? Matthew 5:21-26 may help us with this. Go to your brother and be reconciled with him. The key term is reconcile: make peace, coexist in harmony, settle the disagreement. Some pain takes longer to heal than others. Sometimes we can not fully forgive right away, sometimes not for years. But if we reconcile with our brother, let them know the pain we have caused or the pain they have caused, then we have started down the right road. If you can not forgive at that moment, then it is OK to let them know that you still feel the pain and the hurt, but that you are trying to forgive. And then take it to God in prayer... BOTH of you. Forgiveness comes from God. The ability to put away the sin, to forget it even happened is not part of our current human condition.... it comes from God, and that is where we need to go for help to forgive those who we find it hard to forgive. Forgiveness is hard, it hits us at the center of our pride and self. And those can be awfully hard to overcome.