When asked the most important commandment, Jesus responded,"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and 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." [Mark 12:2
To love others as ourselves, we must first love ourselves. In fact, it would follow that our love for others is limited by our own self-hatred. How do we love ourselves?
True love is patient and kind. It doesn't envy. It doesn't boast. It isn't proud. It isn't rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. [1 Cor 13:4-7].
Let's not confuse loving ourselves with pride. Truly seeing ourselves as the Father sees us, through eyes of extreme love,makes us love ourselves and even like ourselves. Pride is rooted in worldly affirmation. It's a matter of where we find identity.
But guess what? That real identity we so desperately need only comes from the Father himself. Don't we know there are things about us each specifically that he absolutely adores? Let's ask Him and take the time to listen and search His heart out through the Word. It's from there we can stop competing and envying and living in jealousy. When we truly love ourselves, those things disappear.
Because if we are to grow in our capacity to love others, we must also grow in love for ourselves.
