JANUARY 10, 2025
Learning to Love Yourself
Mark 12:30-31
“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.
And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Thought for Today
Jesus declared love as the heart and soul of “The Greatest Commandment” given to mankind. He commanded His people to love God with all that is within them and their neighbor (those in close relationship to them) as they love themselves.
As we examine the later, the question becomes: how do I love myself so that I can love my neighbor in the same way. Learning to love God wholeheartedly and learning to love yourself is necessary to living a fulfilled life in Christ.
Even believers find it difficult to love themselves as God has made them for various reasons such as low self-esteem, emotional and physical abuse, not accepting themselves as God has made them and other causes. Here are several truths that God has declared in His Word that will help anyone struggling to love themselves to overcome those feelings and begin to love the person God has made you to be.
As Jesus declared the first Commandment ‘‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ in the Great Commandment, he declared the second ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ as and essential part of it. Therefore, if you love God, you must love yourself and your neighbor. Additionally, the Psalmist declared in Psalm 139:14, “I will praise You, for am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Know that God loves you and that He formed you and made you. And He desires you to learn to love yourself as He loves you.
Here are several keys to learning to love yourself:
- Accepting Jesus Christ fully and deciding to live for Him
- Viewing yourself as God sees you not as people see you
- Accept what God says in His Word about you as a believer
- Accept yourself as you are and as God has created you and deciding to live according to His Word
- Reject negative names, labels and images that have been associated with you by other people
- When you have confessed sin to God in prayer and He forgives you; you must learn to forgive yourself
It is important to learn to love yourself so that you will, so that you can learn to love and forgive others.
It’s Time to Pray
Most Loving and Gracious God, I thank you that You made me fearfully and wonderfully in Your image and that Your love for me is unconditional. Teach me to love myself, yet allow Your to transform my heart, mind and soul to the image of Christ. Replace my unrighteousness with Your righteousness that I may serve You. In Jesus’ Name. Amen!
