Loving Yourself

The biggest hindrance in my Christian walk has been this: not being able to love.
Love who? Myself.

I feel that it's this way because there are key situations where I label myself:

• worthless
• hideous
• immoral
• unrighteous
• not worthy
• difficult to understand
• not lovable

Accumulated past experiences gone wrong can make a person harbor bitterness. Towards others, and yes, even towards themselves. Past relationships, family history, reputations, and failures can eventually wear the strongest of men down to a point where he feels like cow manure. I, myself have held in these feelings for such a long time and have not allowed Jesus to bear them, but recently God has shown me this:

He wants me to receive His love and love myself too. 

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I am not the only one to struggle with loving myself. First, I thought that this was a selfish phrase. I thought that the act of "loving myself" would place God and others at a distant second place on my priority list. Little did I know that the imaginary list was probably the biggest of my problems. Instead of recognizing the God is the love that is displayed between myself and others, I thought that loving Him, loving others, and loving myself were totally different things. They are not. How can I display His love if I have not received it?

 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 

There is no commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:30-31 

Jesus states the greatest commandments. Love God, and love others, as we would love ourselves.

So, if we look at ourselves as trash blown to the edge of the earth by the wind, then we are not attempting to fulfill that commandment. Instead, we limit God's unending grace and fail to love other's the way we God has called us to. How can we love and tell others about the love of God if we cannot look at ourselves as a product of grace? A lot of us would go to the ends of the earth to tell an insecure woman that she is truly beautiful in God's eyes but, we will not step to the mirror in our bathroom and remember that we are looked at exactly the same.

I believe that this can really mess up a follower of Christ in the long-run. 
When we first accept Christ as our Savior, we have to accept everything. We have to accept that we are sinners. We have to accept that He is Lord. We have to accept that He has redeemed us. We have to accept that He loves us. When we miss these super important points, we cannot fully experience the life God has for us.

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If you are able to, read John 8:1-11, one of my favorite passages of scripture.

 It tells the story of Jesus, a prostitute, and the Pharisees. Jesus walks upon the Pharisees, attempting to stone the woman to death for breaking the law of Moses. The Pharisees ask Jesus, "What should we do to her?" Holding the stones in their hands. Jesus says,
“Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And the Pharisees walk away, one by one. The most beautiful part of this story is verses 10 & 11.

Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

Not only did that woman commit a crime that she could be murdered for, but Jesus didn't care. He loved her anyways.

If Jesus asked us where are our accusers, most of us would honestly have to point only at ourselves. Though He has set us free, we walk as if we are in chains. This is so unhealthy because we our own condemners. Condemnation is not of love. Satan is constantly trying to manipulate our minds, so that instead of accepting what Christ has done for us on the cross as total forgiveness of our unrighteous acts, we are steadily battling ourselves; beating ourselves up over something that has been settled for 2000 years. And then, before you know it, you realize how much of a complete mess up you are. You figure out that you do not have what it takes to be anything in your life. You lose all self-confidence. You start to feel as if you are eternally alone. There's no hope. Your broken. But in the midst of all the doubt and self-despise, there He is...

holding His hand out for you (just as He did to the prostitute). In your dirt, shame, and filthy acts, while your heart is in the lowest place possible, He is saying:

• You re my child (John 1:12).
• You are justified (Romans 3:24)
• You are my friend (John 15:15).
• You are not condemned (Romans 8:1)
• You are a Saint (1 Corinthians 1:2)
• You are new (2 Corinthians 5:17)
• You are free (Galatians 5:1).
• You have been redeemed (Ephesians 1:7).
• Heaven is your home (Philippians 3:20).
• You are loved (Colossians 3:12).

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Believe it. God's love is truly unconditional, which is really, really hard for 99.9% of us to imagine and fully accept because it is so surreal. Everyone in our lives has failed to love us perfectly. Parent's can try, but they are human. Legislature cannot agree with every single social issue. A guy/girl in a relationship cannot get absolutely everything right. The homeless are on corners legitimately starving while hundreds of cars pass them by per day. SO it's really hard to believe in a being that can love us better than anything we have ever imagined. I know it sounds too good to be true, and it is a fact that 100% of world citizens have been hurt before. 

To accept it fully, we must let go of the excuse that we are not worthy of such love. NO ONE is! But God looked down at His creation and saw a people that are worth saving. It's like He saw a tempered child that no other adult would adopt, but He chose to go through with the process. He adopted us, despite our deprivation and disobedience, and like the troubled child, we don't understand why He gives us the Heavens. There is not reason or equation to accurately explain why He loves us.
 But it is simple: He just does.

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For me to realize my worth, I have to stop looking at myself in my own eyes.I must look at myself the same way Jesus looks at me. Accepted and loved. And when I look at myself through His eyes, I can look at the rest of the world through the same lens.

He is telling you who you are. You are telling yourself who you aren't. Who will you believe?

Accept that you are unconditionally loved.