Self Love

Mark 12:31 “The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

This scripture tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Jesus felt said this was important so I will write it again, LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF. During this month, a lot of people will be celebrating Valentine’s Day. This is a day that we consider a time to we show our love for others. It seems to me that sometimes it is easier for we as humans to love others more than we love ourselves. If we pay attention to the way we do things, we constantly help others (which we are suppose do), we basically would do almost ANYTHING for the people we love but then guess what when the favor does not get returned we kind of get disappointed don’t we? We start to feel like nobody cares or nobody loves us, we get upset because we went out of our way to do something for somebody that we cares so much for but when we needed help or encouragement they were not there. Not only that, many times we do not even make time for ourselves. We run all around time doing things for every else, some of us are moms, dads, we hold full time jobs, go to school full time, we are always busy! When we are always busy we not only do not have time for ourselves but we do not have time for God.

That brings me to the topic of self-love because love does not require anything in return, it should not matter what someone did or said to us that should not affect our love for a person. That is why it is important to love others as we love OURSELVES. If we do not love ourselves we cannot fully love others. The Lack of self-love stems from a lack of self-worth. We deal with a lot of issues such as low self-esteem, maybe we are uncomfortable with our skin, uncomfortable with our weight, we don’t feel like we are nice looking, or we feel unloved. Maybe you were in an abusive relationship or you came from a family background of abuse whether it is verbal or physical, maybe you were tensed in school for some reason, well for one reason or another at times it becomes hard to love ourselves when we have experienced those things and we start to believe them.  

What else does God say about love though? Pay close attention to this scripture John 13:34-35 (New International Version, ©2010 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Wow in this scripture Jesus says LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU. How many of us know how God views us? How many of us REALLY know how MUCH GOD LOVES us? How many of us know that God loves us so much that He allowed HIS ONLY SON TO DIE FOR OUR SINS and Jesus Loved us enough to lay down his life for us. That’s REAL love.  

DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE WONDERFULLY AND FEARFULLY MADE? Mediate on this (psalm 139:13-18)

13 For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
   How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you.

Isn’t that amazing! That is how God views you; He did NOT make any mistakes when He made YOU. Beauty is in the heart and the heart is the capsule that holds our love. LOVE YOURSELF AND ENCOURAGE YOURSELF because if you don’t, nobody else will. DO you know people can sense when you are unsure of yourselves? Sometimes we allow people to treat us certain ways because we don’t know are worth. We must always remember that God is love and He only wants to see us happy. When you start to think negatively about yourself begin to say to yourself I know my worth, God made no mistakes when he made me, I am FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY made, I am beautiful, pretty, handsome, I am fine by design  Never let anyone make you feel worthless, most importantly never let yourself feel worthless. God loves all his children so much; we are so precious to Him.