Love Yourself First
Love others as you have loved yourself. This means that in order to love others correctly, we first need to love ourselves correctly.
This is much deeper than self image. This is a reflection of love towards ourselves. Not narcissistic love, not manipulative, not emotional, not selfish, but the right love.
But how do we get the right love? Romans 3:23 says that we have all sinned and fall short! It is only through the first commandment can we do this.
But then again, how can we love God with all of our being? It is impossible to do this -- unless we have first received His love. God is full of love; all the love we received from Him will reflect on us towards Him.
He has died for us first BEFORE we have even known Him.
Then, with the same way we will show love to others first, before others can love us. We dont say "I love you" in order to receive a reply of love -- we say "I love you" because we already have love and we are giving it away to others! Love is therefore effortless, for it is simply a reflection of God's love on us.
If we have plenty of money, we will not be insecure towards money, and then we can spend it generously. The same with love: if we have abundant amount of love (from the Lord) we will not be insecure in love and we can love others generously.
We cannot fake this -- at least not for long, for at the end of the day if we are trying to be generous without being in abundance, we will end up lacking.
The right love (even towards self) has the will to sacrifice.
We need to first receive before we can give (John 3:27) for we had nothing to begin with.
Created over 1 year ago
