Lets talk about Love

 There are two types of loving yourself. There is being conceited, prideful, and arrogant thinking you’re better than everyone, which is a sin and there is naturally loving yourself. Naturally loving yourself is being thankful of what God made. Scripture never says to love yourself because it is normal to love yourself.

No one has to tell you because it just comes naturally. Naturally we love ourselves so Scriptures teaches us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

 On the other hand, Scripture does warn us about self-love. Our focus should not be on ourselves. We must trade self-centered love for agape love. Loving yourself too much shows selfishness and arrogance which God hates. It leads to self-criticism and the sin of boasting. Take your eyes off of yourself and look at the interests of other people.

Love others as yourself.

If you can't love yourself, how is it then that you can love others?

Don’t focus on yourself, instead focus on the awesome love that God has for you.

 1 John 4:19 We love because God first loved us.

Ephesians 2:4-5 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love for us even when we were dead because of our offenses, made us alive together with the Messiah (by grace you have been saved.)

 Psalm 36:7 How precious is your gracious love, God! The children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

Romans 5:8 But God commends his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Think of others as more significant than yourself. 

Romans 12:10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves.

Galatians 5:26 Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.

When we focus on ourselves and our problems things become more magnified than what they truly are. Every person on this earth has dealt with the problem of self hatred. At some point in our lives we have felt like we were not good enough. We have felt like a burden to other people. We have felt like no one on this earth cares for us or cares what happens to us. We have felt ignored. We have felt abandoned. We have felt used, and we have felt abused. We have suffered ridicule. We have been betrayed. 

 There was only one perfect person that ever walked this Earth and that is Jesus Christ. Even He felt rejection and torment the same way we have. This lets me know and you know that we are not alone in our struggles. We have One who can walk beside us and shoulder our burdens and help us along the paths of our lives. We can't shut ourselves up and off from our Creator. We can't continue to torment ourselves for the acts of other people. We can't hold others to a perfect standard while we are flawed. We can't continue day in and day out hating ourselves and our lives. We can't torment ourselves on the inside anymore. Allowing that self-hatred to continue day in and day out will eventually lead us to places we never intended to go.

  People get mixed into drugs and alcohol trying to shut that hateful inner voice off. People try to find their way through the darkness that has invaded their soul by going even deeper into darkness which in turn, triples the level of self hatred. People also try to make the pain and anguish stop by taking their own lives which is never the answer. It transfers your pain to others, which will never heal. We have to search each day for something that will help us heal. When you have a wound that is deep and painful all you can think of is that pain. It consumes your thoughts. It consumes your life. You wake up and think about it. You go through your day dwelling on that thing that has caused you pain. You try to rest at night and all you can do is writhe in agony because of that wound. Will that wound go away without medical treatment of some sort? No. Will that wound heal without our body's natural reaction of protection in the form of a scab? No. Then we need to take this same approach with our inner wounds. 

  The wounds that have hurt our souls are not wounds that we can push aside and not deal with. We have to find the root cause of the wound and find what works to HEAL it. You will find healing in God's Word, His pursuit of you, and in the peace that eventually comes to you through Him. If no one has told you today that you are loved... then hear this... I Love You... and so does God.