“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” (Advice from Atticus Finch, the father, to his daughter in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.)

Doing this requires active empathy and living compassion. We’re supposed to see others and their needs, and then intentionally love and care for them. We’re supposed to put them first and treat them as we ourselves want to be treated. Jesus said that doing this fulfilled “the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12).

That means it is important.

Very important.

Jesus’ vision was truly revolutionary. His famous Sermon on the Mount contains enough direction that we could spend our entire lives trying to follow it. And that’s exactly what He wants us to do.

The Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 5-7 is Jesus’ Inaugural Address. In it He lays out how His government on earth will work. He challenges and stretches us beyond our comfort zones. It culminates with a Scripture known as the Golden Rule, which says:

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets” (Matthew 7:12, KJV).

Just like our Master, people should always be our primary focus.

This flies in the face of our natural self-centered tendencies. Instead of looking to our own desires first, He wants us to look to the needs of others and become other-focused.

The world system tells us that “whoever has the gold makes the rules.”

But people with hearts and brains wired to the will of God resist that notion.

Practicing the Golden Rule is the key to following Jesus, and in the end, honoring God. Learn how to live this kind of life in this video teaching on Jesus’ Inaugural Address: the Golden Rule.