Loving Ourselves the Right Way

 

Philippians 2:3(NLT)
"Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves.”

God desires to see us blessed. We can depend on this. 1John 4:8(ESV) states, “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Because our Heavenly Father is love, He is the definitive authority on the subject. In His Word, we learn some very important lessons about how love should behave. One of the most important things that He teaches us about love is the fact that love is a commitment, and this commitment is expressed, secured, and sustained through the right actions. Our Heavenly Father taught us this when He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die as a sacrifice for the sins of us all. This demonstrated how much God loves us. Romans 8:32(NLT) states, "Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?"

Anyone can tell you that their love for you is true, but how will you really know it? The answer to this question lies within the person’s actions. James 2:26 tells us that faith without works is dead. In other words, it isn’t enough to make a declaration about what you feel or believe. Anyone can do this. I can tell someone that I care for them all day long, but my words are dead as a doorknob if I never do anything to demonstrate that I care. Our actions convey the depth of our feelings. Our actions convey what we truly believe. God tells us in His Word that He loves us, and He backed it up by sending His only begotten Son to earth to save us. Through God’s loving example, He demonstrates that His love is true love, and His love is the kind we should demonstrate for ourselves and for others.

Self-indulgence is something that people living in modern times do really well. We live in a “ME” society, and no one can argue against that successfully. Most of us are taught to put ourselves before any other person. Society values financial wealth, power, and fame more than any other attributes, and we are taught to aspire and achieve those things at any cost. God tells us something different in 1Timothy 6:6(NLT). He says, “Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.” As we can see, society and the world have a very different view of wealth than our Heavenly Father view. They do not value what He values, and they do not love what He loves. In God's eyes, living by the example of Christ and contentment with His blessings is great wealth. This is the way He sees it, and to be the men and women that He created us to be, we must see things His way as well.

God tells us in Philippians 2:3 that we’re not to be selfish, which means that the “all about me” attitude and mindset that many of us have must be kicked totally to the curb. We shouldn’t try to impress others with how much money we have or what kind of house, car, or clothes we wear. None of that matters to God. What matters to Him is that we are humble. We should never think that we’re better than anyone else, or that any person is less than another. God doesn’t have favorites, and He isn’t partial to one person over another. We must learn from His example.

I remember some years ago, I attended a gala for a non-profit organization. Their mission is to provide aid to the underserved in their local community. Along with donors and higher ups in the organization, many of the people they had helped were there that night. Some of them had wonderful success stories about how the organization’s assistance helped them get on their feet. In my opinion, this gala should have been all about them. They should have been celebrated, and to some extent they were, but I was shocked to see that as the food was being served at this gala, the top donors and employees were served first. This is not the way of Christ.

Loving ourselves isn’t all about pampering with spas and lavishness. Loving ourselves is loving God’s way. James 1:6(NLT) says, “But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.” Some of us have a divided mentality because we’re looking to the world for happiness. We’re looking to what the world offers to make us feel whole and special. God commands us to look to Him and Him alone. He is the Source of our joy and blessings, and we must never forget this.

Our behaviors sometime suggest that we think the world has the key to our happiness, but this could never be true. Jesus Christ commands us in Matthew 7:12(NLT), “Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.” This is the truth that creates the space in our lives for God’s blessings to land. Many of us are feeling shaky and unsure, and our lives may be filled with uncertainly, but one thing is forever and always true, God’s love never fails. If we love God and put Him first in all things, we are loving ourselves the right way. If we love others with a heart that is unselfish and kind, we’re loving ourselves the right way. And if we put the welfare of others before ourselves continually, we are showing ourselves the greatest amount of love, and it will be returned to us in abundance. ■

English Standard Version (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

“Loving Ourselves the Right Way”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.