Mark 12:30-31 "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: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
These Bible verses speaks right to my heart. Love! I'm going to take some time in the next week or so and dissect these 2 verses. Why? I know you've heard it all before but there are parts of these verses that we really don't seem to understand, at least I didn't for a long time. So bare with me as I dive in deep with these powerful verses. I know there are many powerful verse in the Bible but, to me when Jesus said, "There is no greater commandment than these", That got my attention and peaked my interest. Please feel free to comment, let's get into a discussion.
Instead of starting off in the beginning, I am going to start at the end.
"Love your neighbor as yourself" What in the world is Jesus saying here? I do love my neighbor but to love myself would be conceited and arrogant, right?
Not necessary. Jesus commands us to love our neighbor, but here He is also commanding us to love ourselves, isn't He? Let me be honest here. The more I love myself, the more I will be able to love others. You see, I can't give what I don't have. If I cannot love the me God created me to be, if I cannot love the me that is created in the image of God Himself, if I cannot love the me I see in the mirror every day with all my flaws, all my sins, all my ugliness, how could I ever love my neighbor?
I can't! If I do not love who I am, not in a conceited, arrogant or prideful way, but in a way that says, "Thank you God for making me as I am", than I have no idea how to love others. Love is not a feeling or an emotion, it's a decision. We decide who we will love, we decide how we will love, we decide when we will love. Love is a verb, not a noun. It's something we do, or at least we should do.
Think back to the days when we were much younger. I relive my younger years through my grandchildren. I see them walk out in public with clothes I wouldn't have dreamed of wearing. When we were younger, we loved who we were. It didn't matter if everyone liked what we were wearing or not, we did and that was all that mattered. We didn't change who we were in order to feel loved, we were who we were and we liked who we were. If no one else did, too bad!!
When my granddaughter Brooklyn started school my daughter was a little worried because Brooklyn likes to dress colorful and sometimes the clothes didn't match. My daughter wondered if she should make her change. "No, just let her be her." Honestly I wish I had had this attitude with my children, but I didn't. If I knew then what I know things would have been different! If only us adults could approach our lives with the same freedom and blind love for ourselves that children have.
Look at Facebook, you will see numbers of photos of children dressed and acting goofy. They are being who God created them to be and they love themselves, because no one has told them differently. They honestly love themselves and accept themselves. This is the way we should be.
Loving yourself is not wrong. Yes there are those who love themselves in the wrong way, thinking they're better than everyone else, thinking they're the "cat's meow". This is not the kind of love I am talking about here. I am talking about the kind of love for yourself that says, "God I thank you for making me who I am. Thank you for making me unique." Until we get to that point in our lives we will never know how to truly love someone else.
Love is powerful. When we love ourselves, we have confidence that God can use us to reach a lost and broken world. When we love ourselves, we can share the love of Christ with everyone we meet. When we love ourselves, we will notice the hurting people. Because when we love ourselves, we accept ourselves as God made us, we take the focus off of us and we will begin to notice others who need to feel loved.
We can't share what we don't have. Jesus says it clear, "Love your neighbors as you love yourself". So how are you doing at loving yourself today? My answer? I'm not where I need to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be.
Lord, thank you for making me the way you did. Thank you for creating me in your image. Thank you for showing me how to love the me you created me to be. Give me the courage to love myself, in Jesus name I pray, amen!
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