Do you find it hard to love yourself? If you are a Christian, do you find it hard to love yourself first before the people you are ministering to? Do you feel guilty if you do something for yourself? We are supposed to love our neighbour as we love OURSELVES. The truth is, we cannot really love others if we cannot love ourselves first.
Love requires a person to give fully of himself. If a person does not know their true self, there's nothing to give. Or if one has only part knowledge of oneself, then one can only give part of oneself. To love fully is to give fully, sacrificial love means to lay it all down. If you don't love yourself, how can you lay it all down? If you do not know who you are, how can you claim to give it away?
So, does that then equate to: if you've don't know who you are and you don't love yourself, then what you're giving away is not the real thing? Authenticity. The real thing. Do we give of ourselves out of gaining a benefit so that we feel better about ourselves? Ie. We get busy with ministry and be a philanthropist because it makes us feel better and take the guilt away? We please others because it boosts our self-image and and ease our guilt. We strive to be better because we are not happy in who we are. We please because we want people to like us and accept us. Not because we genuinely just want to bless the person, with no self-gain whatsoever.
That's tricky, isn't it? It's not hard to do it all for the wrong reasons. No one is perfect, so count me in the hypocrisy and self-gain bandwagon. I am working on it. The truth is, no amount of good works will justify us a place in heaven. No amount of striving and slogging in the ministry will make us a better Christian than the Christian who does nothing. We do acts of kindness because we love. We love because God first loved us. We give of ourselves freely because we are free and secure in that unconditional love of God to be who we really are. If we love others, we will also allow them to be who God has made them to be rather than what you'd like them to be.
May we learn to truly love one another, as we learn to truly love ourselves.
2 comments:
jomel... rightly said! We're all work in progress so whilst we may strive for perfection, it won't be until we are in heaven that we will be truly perfect. But, having said that, there's always room for improvement so it doesn't mean we don't do anything about our hypocrisy.
Some people have lots to pick on Christians saying we are a bunch of hypocrites. All I can say about that is, that's why we are saved by grace and not by ourselves!!! Thank God for Jesus who did it for us. He's the only man who was perfect and took our place of condemnation so we will not be condemned. We are work in progess until he comes again! He who has no sin cast the first stone!
i mean, let the person who says he has no sin cast the first stone.
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