Love thy Neighbor as Yourself

Dear friends,
I pray that you are increasing in the wisdom and knowledge of our Lord. I want to revisit something today that is on my heart. It is an area that I have had to deal with in my own life and feel it may be a key in the lives of many of God's children. I pray this will minister to someone today.


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 love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31

Many years ago in a conversation with a Christian brother, there was something said that caused a reaction inside me. He had simply said that the Christian life was not that complicated, that all we had to do was love God with all our being, love ourselves, and love our neighbors. The part that caused a rising up in me was the thought of loving ourselves. It was only after I had prayed and meditated on the word of God that I saw that reaction for what it was, a religious spirit. There needed to be an adjustment in my thinking. There needed to be repentance.

Growing up in the church there was much emphasis on salvation, but not nearly so much on discipling. We heard how we were filthy, rotten sinners and that even after we were saved our hearts were still desperately wicked. Most of us lived with a spirit of rejection any way, because of our fallen state and even after we were saved we didn't measure up. I don't know about you, but I felt it was spiritual to hate oneself.
For some of us hating ourselves was not something we had to attain to; we already did. Growing up I didn't like the way I looked; I had big ears and a long skinny neck and in the fifth grade I found out I had a big nose, too. A spirit of rejection not only sets us up for rejection by others, but is really rooted in self rejection.

I am convinced that many of the issues people are dealing with today both in the church and the world is rooted in self-hatred. How can I say that? Foundationally speaking, this is what God showed me: how can I love my neighbor as myself, if I don't love myself. I cannot love others if I don't love me. So many relationships are destroyed by the fact that we can't love others if we don't love ourselves. Look at the marriage relationship; can the husband truly love his wife if he hates himself. If we don't love ourselves all relationships are just surface. We live with a sense of shame, believing we are flawed and believing that if you really knew me you would hate me, too. It causes one to throw up a wall that know one can get through.

So many of the health issues of our day are brought on by self-hatred. Obesity is often a result. In extreme cases depression, suicidal thoughts, death wishes, destructive habits, addictions, and abuse. Sometimes it manifests itself in anger toward God like the clay saying to the potter, "Why have You made me this way?"

So when we talk about loving ourselves, what are we saying? First, we are not talking about egotistical, "How wonderful I am kind of thinking." Loving yourself is being able to receive yourself as God's creation fearfully and wonderfully made, not deriving one's self worth by appearance, ability, intelligence, or any other measurement of man, but by the love and worth that God has given you.
Years ago when my son was collecting baseball cards, he asked me how much a certain card was worth and I replied, "It is worth what someone is willing to pay for it." How often I have thought of those words in reference to what God was willing to pay for us! If your value is determined by how much someone is willing to pay, what was paid for you?

Sometimes when I am writing or teaching, the more I get into it the more it grows and there is so much in this that I am not even scratching the surface. I do want to include some scriptures that I believe are applicable and maybe make a comment or two.

Proverbs 18:9b (Amp. Bible) and he who does not use his endeavors to heal himself is brother to him who commits suicide. Now why did I put that in there? Because if we have a healthy love for self we will take care of our bodies which are, after all, temples of the Holy Spirit. As we said earlier much of the abuse many inflict on their bodies is due to self-hatred.

Psalms 139: 13-16 For You formed my inward parts; you covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made, marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed, and in Your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me. when as yet there were none of them. You are not an accident. When God made you He didn't say ,"Oops." God wasn't having a bad day; He doesn't have Mondays. You are a unique creation of a loving God.

Ephesians 1:6 To the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. Rejected, no more, you are accepted.

Romans 15:7 Therefore receive one another, just as Christ also received us, to the glory of God. Know that you have been received, receive yourself, and then you can receive others.

Ezekiel 36:26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you: I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. In the new covenant you have been given a heart transplant; you don't have that old deceitfully wicked heart anymore.

May you be ever encouraged by His love extended to you and shed abroad in you by the Holy Spirit.
Be blessed,
Herb Dean