As Yourself

As You Love Yourself

When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment in the Law, He responded with this:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

First, we must start with God Himself. God ‘IS’ Love. He Loves you and created you. He became a human to die for you; to save you. He watches over you, blesses you, disciplines you, listens to you, answers you, provides for you and more…ALL out of LOVE! Discover how God loves you and what love looks like, then discover how to return it as commanded.

The commands seem simple enough on the surface. Of course we should love God and our neighbor. Beneath the surface lies a wealth of truth that we should look at.

The heart is the emotional seat of our being. To Lord the Lord with all our heart is to fall in love with God. Not half our heart, not 95% of our heart, but ‘ALL’ our heart!

God wants ALL your love. 100% sold out love for Him. Why? Because He loves you 100%! Any perfect relationship can only exist when both parties are 100% into each other.

I’ve heard many a person say relationships are supposed to be 50/50. I believe this is a tragic error, because it leaves 50% of selfishness, bad behavior, laziness, unfaithfulness and whatever else you sqeeze into that 50% space.

To have a mate who is for you 100%; 100% of the time, is something heavenly! If you look out for your mate; his heart, his needs, his fears, his dreams; 100% of everything…’AND’….he is doing the same for you, you have paradise on earth! You have his back and seek to please him and uplift him and he seeks to please and uplift you!

Incidentally, this is the relationship which exist in the Trinity. The Father exalts the Son and the Spirit. Jesus exalts the Father and Spirit. The Holy Spirit exalts the Father and Son. Each in a sense, submits to the other in love. PERFECTION!

To love God with all your soul is to yield your spiritual self to God. This is where your faith, obedience and faithfulness to God is maintained. Jesus said “If you love Me, you would obey My commands.” It is the giving of yourself; your soul to God.

Next we have loving God with all your mind. Your mind; your intellect is where your decision process is made. To love God with your mind is to mentally submit to God. To acknowledge that ‘He Is’. In ‘real’ acknowledgement, your every action will show or disprove how well you actually ‘believe, submit and acknowledge’ your God.

Lastly, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’.

Loving your neighbor sounds easy, but some of you can’t even bring yourself to full love yourself! For whatever reason, you still believe what others have said about you; not pretty enough, too fat or skinny, not smart enough, too many mistakes, shamed by the past, etc. Some of you have been beat down by life until you believe the circumstances more than you God, hence don’t love yourself.

I think that is why the commands are stated in that ‘VERY’ order: ‘Love God, Love Yourself, Love Your Neighbor. I know to some of you it looks like the ‘neighbor’ is second, but it actually says; ‘Love your neighbor AS yourself’, placing love for yourself FIRST so that you can properly love your neighbor and placing Loving God above you so you can learn HOW to love yourself.

This is God’s design!

1. Discover God’s Love for you and the way He Loves.
2. After you learn and realize this love, return it to God.
3. Because you now love God and knows He loves you, you can properly gain a healthy and ‘right’ love for yourself.
4. With God’s Love and you loving God and yourself, you can now ‘properly’ love others.
5. Seek out those who have also learned from God how to love so that they can love You ‘Properly’; ESPECIALLY Your Boaz!

See the outline? If you get any of these out of order, the ‘love’ you are looking for, feeling and giving, is distorted.

Some of you can’t find love because you don’t know what love looks or feels like. Some are scared because they were taught something ‘else’ from someone who told them or showed them a false ‘love’. Many don’t know how to love because they don’t fully love themselves because they haven’t learned from God.

Get to know God’s Love and proceed in the correct order! Until you get this right, your love won’t be heavenly with your Boaz or anyone else for that matter. You can’t love others as yourself until you learn how to love. Discover Love and How to Love from God, Who ‘IS’ Love!

God Bless