The Lord has wired us to need people in our lives and for people to need us in their lives. God made Adam and had a good fellowship with him, but later on He made Eve. His desire was for Adam not to be alone. We are healthy when we are in the right relationship with God and with others hence Jesus’ two greatest commandments.
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40
Loving our neighbor as ourselves is not easy, but it is part of our path of holiness and Christlikeness that we must follow. Jesus’ second commandment has three elements.
1. Loving Others-What is the impact of loving others in our lives?
2. My Neighbor-Who is my neighbor?
3. As myself- What does loving myself look like?
I’ll begin with the third one on the list and go backwards since that’s really the order of this commandment. The prerequisite to loving my neighbor as myself is that I need to love myself first. Then I can love the “neighbor” as myself.
3. Loving myself-What does loving myself look like?
In order to love ourselves in a healthy way, we need to receive God’s continual love and truth. God’s love heals us from wrong self-image. Whether the self-image is self-criticism or self-aggrandizement, God’s love and truth give us a clear picture of who we really are. There is no need for guilt or shame anymore. Neither is there room for arrogance and lofty thinking.
God’s word gives us a perfect mirror to see ourselves clearly. His acceptance of us helps us to accept ourselves without needing to mask our true condition. We get comfortable in our own skin. How we evaluate our value and self-worth changes. We don’t compare ourselves to others and neither do we based on worth on our productivity.
The first commandment helps us to stay in a continual exposure and intimacy with the Lord which keeps us steady and stable in who are. The issues and difficulties of life will challenge our value, identity, & significance., but a healthy relationship with the Lord will strengthen us to resist pride, fear, or defeat. We know who we are and whose we are. We remain confident in the midst of opposition. God’s love keeps us soft, dependent, and in faith.
The fruit of loving ourselves is that we begin to like who we are. We don’t have to numb ourselves with busyness, people, or substances. Spending time with ourselves is not a bad thing any longer because we enjoy our own company! We no longer fear being forgotten and neither are we controlled by the approval of others. I thank God for Him transforming the “Self”.
Do you love yourself in a healthy way?
I will continue with this subject in the next devotional.