ThTh.001: “…As Yourself”

In Matthew 22:36-39, Jesus answers His disciples when asked what the greatest commandment is to keep. He says “‘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.’ Lately I have been noticing how often that last part gets glossed over. So many times this commandment is brought up in church and sermons but it always feels like they say to “Love the Lord your God and love your neighbors ^_asyourself…” This makes it seem like it is a two part commandment but in reality there are three distinct calls to action here and each one is significant in that, without it the other two are impossible to do well!

The first part “Love God” Is the most necessary since, without loving Him, you have no idea of what true love is in order to even begin to understand how to love anyone else. Without truly understanding how great His love is, that He would send His Son to die for us while we were just scummy little sinners, we fail to gain access to the deepest well of love that exists, which fills us up and overflows from our lives into the lives of people around us. The second part, “Love others” is important too because, if we are not showing love to others then why would anyone want anything to do with the God we love, who taught us to love. If we cannot show love to them it doesn’t reflect well on the true depth of God’s love or make a great case for why we declare our lives as His. I think most people would agree with those first two parts. However, the third part, which I am seeing so many gloss over lately, “…as yourself” seems just as important. it means that, before we can love others well, we must truly love ourselves. If we love others as ourselves but have no true love for ourselves then arguably we have no true love for our brothers and sisters either!

In today’s culture we #treatyourself #selfcare #selflove #blessed and those tags are usually at the bottom of a post talking about how we bought ourselves something extra nice or took a bath with some fragrant lit candles… well sorry not sorry but those examples of “loving” yourself are as shallow as that bath water! Yes, a bath can be nice and relaxing and yes, sometimes you deserve to buy something that you worked extra hard to earn BUT those are not what it means to truly love yourself. Those are ways to reward yourself. The deep work of learning to love yourself doesn’t normally make it to the Instagram highlight reel.

learning to love yourself is a result of the hard work inside your own mind that you have to battle with every day. It is waking up and not judging yourself for not feeling like you can work out that day and instead giving grace to yourself to do what you can and be thankful for the ability to do that. Loving yourself is setting boundaries in your life that keep you from things that you know are harmful to your mental health. Not binge watching Netflix and instead getting some good rest. Not scrolling forever mindlessly through social media and instead taking a silent walk outside to appreciate what God has made…etc.

Taking the time to talk to Him and thank Him for it all is the biggest thing we can do to learn to love better. When we show God our thanks, He reveals more of His design to us and part of that design is how He made us uniquely and loves us unconditionally. Our God-designed uniqueness demolishes any comparison trap we may find ourselves in as a result of too much social media time, which frees us from resentment and instead allows us to rejoice with our friends in the things they are celebrating or experiencing. And the unconditional love we receive from God should free ourselves from our own over perfectionist view of how we think we should behave. This doesn’t mean we don’t have to try to be better, but it does help us find grace for ourselves to get back up when we fall and try again.

We can only love ourselves well when we truly understand how God loves us and we can only love others well when we get those two things right. So talk to God! Get to know the one that made you and knows exactly how He is making you perfectly into the person you are meant to be. We are all God’s masterpieces in progress and I can’t wait to see His finished work of art!

Blessings FAM!

How have you been practicing true self love? What are some ways you remind yourself of God’s love for you in order to fuel your ability to love yourself and love others? Let me know in the comments below