Did You Say Love Yourself Well?
Well, That is What I Said.
Do you know the Two Greatest Commandments? (if not, see verses below)
To truly love is “to care so much for the object of love that you do what is best for that person regardless of the personal cost to you”. “What is best” is not arbitrary but defined for us by the God Who IS Love! ( I John 4:16) Jesus lived loved and gave love freely – the cross is a picture of it.
Get it? God loves us first, and now we can return that love because Holy Spirit lives in each believer and produces the fruit of the Spirit, beginning with love. I can love you because I am loved and empowered to do so. I can do what is best for you whether you understand it, want it, or love me back. This love is the basis of all healthy relationships (of parenting, of leadership, in marriage, at work, in families) and of joy in those relationships. When love is both given and received in a relationship, there is no better human-to-human intimacy on all levels: physical, emotional, spiritual, and this love endures.
I hope you understand that to love yourself means to live caringly, sacrificially, and humbly before God and others. (Micah 6:8, Ecclesiastes 12:13; John 13:34-35) In Galatians 5:13-14 Apostle Paul issues the command again to “love others as you love yourself”! Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1:22-23 admonishes us to love fervently from the heart.
Maybe a contrast will help me explain what I mean. Consider the worldly, perverted view of “self-love” that means to put my needs and wants above yours, that considers my feelings and desires as valid and yours as less valid, that selfishly wants what I want when I want it and the way I want it, regardless of how adversely my choices impact you. That, my friend, is not the “love yourself” that Jesus speaks of in the second greatest commandment. What I have described is self-hatred, self-loathing since that kind destroys and prohibits loving, sacrificial, selfless love.
As an example, having sex before marriage is in many places considered normal and even wise, as it allows the couple to “test their compatibility” prior to marriage. Wrong. It actually creates insecurity and demonstrates disrespect for the partner and for God’s Word. Pre-marital sex may seem like a good plan, and it certainly can feel very good, but it is actually self-hatred because more often than not, it creates problems in the relationship – either ruining a good one or prolonging a bad one. I have seen that happen very often. Loving self as Jesus calls us to do results in thinking so highly of His way of purity and love that one focuses on the friendship and spiritual fellowship with the partner waiting for marriage to consummate sexually what God ordained as good and right. Pre-marital sex, as with other sins, allows for temporary gratification of a desire or feeling, while putting what I want above what God wants for me.
Will I sin willingly if I love myself and others and God? No way.
Will I lust for what others have if I love God, others, and self? Not at all.
Note that all of the 10 commandments will be fulfilled by us if we love.
We don’t do this perfectly, do we? When we fail, we have forgiveness and mercy available from a loving Father. If we truly love ourselves, we’ll access forgiveness and repent as soon as possible.
My final comment is this. We have been commanded to love as Jesus loves us, which is impossible without having His love empowering us at our core. He commands love, makes love available, promises to never leave us, then rewards us here and hereafter for engaging love toward the Father, others, and our very own self. What a deal!
Have you availed yourself of Jesus’ love? Why not now? Believe Him. Receive Him. Engage Him in the world of your relationships with people who desperately need love. Don’t forget to love yourself in the process…you are loved! You might as well appreciate and enjoy being loved.
Here are the first and second commandments and their old testament sources:
Matthew 22:37-39 :
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]
Quoted passages from the Old Testament:
Deuteronomy 6:4-5:
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[b] 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
Leviticus 19:18:
18 “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.