Love Yourself
Question: What is the most important thing when it comes to following God?
Answer: It's sorta several things all wrapped up together under the umbrella of love.
So, let’s talk about love, specifically, loving yourself, but let’s go about it backwards.
When we ask the question, “what is the most important thing,” that question has been asked before. We see in several places, Mark 12:28-31, Matthew 22:36-40, and Luke 10:25-28, Jesus being asked this question by a scribe, and Jesus provides a direct answer. In Mark it says, “And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
So, we are given the answer. The most important thing is to love God with everything that you have and are, but the second greatest commandment is to love others, your neighbor, as you love yourself. This second part is echoed again in Romans 13:9 “For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
This is significant for several reasons. First, why would Jesus, when asked what the greatest commandment was, give a first and second greatest commandment? They are intricately entwined and of similar nature and importance, but then there’s another correlation that happens in the second greatest commandment. We are to love our neighbor AS YOURSELF.
How you feel about yourself. If you were to write a description of yourself, what would it say? Would it be something like “I'm kind. I'm smart. I'm friendly. I'm talented. Etc…” or would it be something like "I'm ugly. I'm awkward. I'm not good enough. Etc…"
The fact is that for a lot of people in the world today, they don't love themselves in any way. They see nothing but negativity and inadequacy when they look in the mirror. They don't believe they are loved or even worthy of love from anyone, including themselves. Sadly, some of the people in the world who appear to be the happiest or funniest are some of the most depressed, who love themselves the least, but this is not how we were meant to live.
Over the past few weeks I’ve written about living a full and abundant life full of passion and adventure. Now, we are looking at the most important thing, love, and you can't live a full life, you can't fully love God, if you don't love yourself.
Why?
If we are going to follow God’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves that necessitates that we have a positive self-image. You can’t pour from an empty vessel. You can’t speak life and worth and value into someone if you don’t hold it yourself.
It’s important that we don’t misunderstand this. There’s a distinct difference between pride and arrogance, puffing yourself up, and loving yourself. Loving yourself is an active choice not to listen to the world or the lies of Satan that often say that we aren’t good enough, or successful enough, or pretty enough, or talented enough, or rich enough, or smart enough, or interesting enough, or healthy enough, or funny enough, or strong enough, or whatever enough. Loving yourself, instead, is actively choosing to look at yourself through God’s eyes, which then allows you to look at others through those same eyes.
We see in Isaiah 43:4 God says, “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.”
Also, in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
And finally, in Psalm 139:13-14, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
These are just a few of the verses in the Bible that talk about this, but we see from these that we are:
God has a positive view of you. It’s why He came as a human, lived, suffered, died and rose again for you. God loves you. He sees worth and value and beauty in you. This does not mean that we are perfect, or meant to paint people with rose colored glasses, but it does mean that we are flawed, but still worth saving, still worth loving.
If we are going to love others as we love ourselves we must have that mindset. If we are going to love God with everything that we are, we can’t say He’s a liar about our own worth or state that His workmanship that He fearfully and wonderfully made wasn’t worth it, isn’t worth it.
So, I challenge you, review your description of yourself. Analyze how you think about yourself. Are you looking at yourself through God’s eyes? Do you give yourself the same grace and compassion that you give others, that God gives you? Do you love yourself? If not, ask God to help you to see yourself as He sees you, as someone who is broken and flawed, but beautiful and valuable and worth going to extreme measures to save and redeem.
Answer: It's sorta several things all wrapped up together under the umbrella of love.
So, let’s talk about love, specifically, loving yourself, but let’s go about it backwards.
When we ask the question, “what is the most important thing,” that question has been asked before. We see in several places, Mark 12:28-31, Matthew 22:36-40, and Luke 10:25-28, Jesus being asked this question by a scribe, and Jesus provides a direct answer. In Mark it says, “And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
So, we are given the answer. The most important thing is to love God with everything that you have and are, but the second greatest commandment is to love others, your neighbor, as you love yourself. This second part is echoed again in Romans 13:9 “For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
This is significant for several reasons. First, why would Jesus, when asked what the greatest commandment was, give a first and second greatest commandment? They are intricately entwined and of similar nature and importance, but then there’s another correlation that happens in the second greatest commandment. We are to love our neighbor AS YOURSELF.
How you feel about yourself. If you were to write a description of yourself, what would it say? Would it be something like “I'm kind. I'm smart. I'm friendly. I'm talented. Etc…” or would it be something like "I'm ugly. I'm awkward. I'm not good enough. Etc…"
The fact is that for a lot of people in the world today, they don't love themselves in any way. They see nothing but negativity and inadequacy when they look in the mirror. They don't believe they are loved or even worthy of love from anyone, including themselves. Sadly, some of the people in the world who appear to be the happiest or funniest are some of the most depressed, who love themselves the least, but this is not how we were meant to live.
Over the past few weeks I’ve written about living a full and abundant life full of passion and adventure. Now, we are looking at the most important thing, love, and you can't live a full life, you can't fully love God, if you don't love yourself.
Why?
If we are going to follow God’s commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves that necessitates that we have a positive self-image. You can’t pour from an empty vessel. You can’t speak life and worth and value into someone if you don’t hold it yourself.
It’s important that we don’t misunderstand this. There’s a distinct difference between pride and arrogance, puffing yourself up, and loving yourself. Loving yourself is an active choice not to listen to the world or the lies of Satan that often say that we aren’t good enough, or successful enough, or pretty enough, or talented enough, or rich enough, or smart enough, or interesting enough, or healthy enough, or funny enough, or strong enough, or whatever enough. Loving yourself, instead, is actively choosing to look at yourself through God’s eyes, which then allows you to look at others through those same eyes.
We see in Isaiah 43:4 God says, “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.”
Also, in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
And finally, in Psalm 139:13-14, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
These are just a few of the verses in the Bible that talk about this, but we see from these that we are:
- Precious
- Honored
- Loved
- Valued
- Workmanship of the Creator
- Known
- Wonderful
God has a positive view of you. It’s why He came as a human, lived, suffered, died and rose again for you. God loves you. He sees worth and value and beauty in you. This does not mean that we are perfect, or meant to paint people with rose colored glasses, but it does mean that we are flawed, but still worth saving, still worth loving.
If we are going to love others as we love ourselves we must have that mindset. If we are going to love God with everything that we are, we can’t say He’s a liar about our own worth or state that His workmanship that He fearfully and wonderfully made wasn’t worth it, isn’t worth it.
So, I challenge you, review your description of yourself. Analyze how you think about yourself. Are you looking at yourself through God’s eyes? Do you give yourself the same grace and compassion that you give others, that God gives you? Do you love yourself? If not, ask God to help you to see yourself as He sees you, as someone who is broken and flawed, but beautiful and valuable and worth going to extreme measures to save and redeem.
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