LOVE YOURSELF

December 11. Genesis 41-44

LOVE YOURSELF

“The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”‭ ‭Matthew‬ ‭22‬:‭39‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

GOOD DAY. Love your neighbor as yourself. I repeat it again. This verse of scripture is so much quoted that it seems to have lost its significance. Today however, it took a new meaning to me when the Holy Spirit asked me if I love myself to which I answered yes. We then started a self examination exercise and I was reminded of a simple common experience we all see or have regularly. A friend of mine is big and a bit bigger than me. We both would love to shed a little of the weight but no effort yielded lasting results. My friend got frustrated with herself, talked every part of herself down, then little by little she started talking every other person down. She became a specialist in seeing even the tiniest flaw in people and soon people kept avoiding her and talking her down too. I learnt early in my battle with weight to love myself from a young lady. She is big and one day I said to her “do something about your size” to which she said “aunty, I love my body”. Since then, I started loving myself and I found that I was able to love others. It is part of fulfilling the second most important commandment. I look at myself in the mirror and tell the person I see that I love her. I tell her how I will treat her during the day to show that I love her. As I love her, she loves others and she is loved by others back.

How do you check if you love yourself? What is love?

“Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails;...”‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭4‬-‭8‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬.

How much of each attribute of love do you exercise to yourself? Are you really conscious of yourself to even know how to love yourself? It is your capacity to love yourself you will use to love others. When anyone is unloving to me now, I pity the person as he does not love himself either.