…you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it; you shall love your neighbor as (you do) yourself. ~Matthew 22:37-39 (AMPCE)
Loving God, ourselves, and other people should be our number one priority. It’s good to love our job and okay to love the beautiful and wonderful things God has given us to enjoy but the most important thing to God is that we walk in love every minute of every day. To do that we have to have a revelation of God’s love towards us. We must remember and meditate on that awesome, unconditional love that drew us to the Lord before we ever cared to change. That love we received before we ever even had a thought about living out the destiny God had planned for us. Do you remember when you were that person? Lost and alone and unsure of your tomorrows? None of us will ever be able to love others like the Lord has called us to do if we don’t care much for ourselves. Do you love yourself unconditionally? Or do you beat yourself up regularly over things you cannot change or go back and do anything about? Far too often we try to hold ourselves accountable to standards that the Lord doesn’t even want to impose on us. We need to take the Lord at His word knowing He has made provision for every failing we have and forgive ourselves as He has forgiven us. We must learn to be content with who the Lord has made us to be. Have you ever met anyone who had no mercy on themselves? It isn’t hard to see why they couldn’t have any mercy on someone else. Those are the people we need to encourage to be patient with themselves. We need to remind them that God’s grace makes up the difference in everything. He is the one who perfects us in His sight. We need to continually remind each other that God has chosen every one of us for a purpose, warts and all, because He loves us so much. He tells us in Isaiah 45:4-5 “Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life.” (NIV) Did you know God loved you that much? Little ole you are the apple of His eye, and His eye doesn’t wander off from keeping a constant watch on everything that concerns you!
The Lord knows we don't do everything perfectly, but He has chosen to love and bless us anyway, every day. That was the whole purpose of the cross. God restored our relationship to Himself without any good works on our part. If we don’t have a healthy love for ourselves, how can we ever love our neighbor? It has been said “a healthy mind thinks no ill towards another”. Taking that into consideration, how many healthy minds do you know? We can’t help others love better, stronger, and more consistently if we aren’t able to do it ourselves. The whole world is looking at us. We are supposed to be the “Jesus People”. The ones who turn the other cheek and wash people’s feet, not the ones who never have a kind word to say about “certain people”. Start today with a commitment to walk in love. 1 John 4:16 tells us "God is love and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them.” (GNT) You can have a whole bunch of faith and you can have a whole bunch of hope, but God says He likes it best when you have a whole bunch of love!
So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. ~I Corinthians 13:13 (ESV)
How will you demonstrate your commitment to walk in love today?
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