Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39)

Do you love yourself?

If you do not love yourself then you are not going to be able to love your neighbor very well.

I admit that I did not like or love myself for the longest time. I did not feel worthy of love because I thought I messed up too often, had made too many mistakes along the way, said the wrong things, disappointed people, used bad tone, wasn’t kind enough, was selfish and materialist and greedy, prone to jealousy, impatient, and the list could go on and on.

I thought it was easier to love my husband and sons, (who are my first neighbors because I believe your “neighbor” is anyone you interact with in a days’ time, and we should be showing Christ-like love to our spouse and children.) than to love myself.

Then I read that you cannot give what you do not have.

If I did not know love for myself then how could I genuinely offer love to others. If I was not willing to receive God’s unconditional love, then how could I offer unconditional love.

I decided to double down on love.

I wanted to figure out how to love myself. I wanted to learn how to receive love. And I wanted to figure out, what does Christ-like love look like? How does Christ-like love feel? How do I offer it well to others?

I wondered, why don’t we love ourselves? Why don’t we like who and how God made us? Why are we so prone to doubts, fears, negative stories, and assuming the worst? Why are we so hard on ourselves? And why is loving ourselves, and sometimes others, so hard? What was I missing?

I realized that I had been listening to the wrong voices. I had been listening to the lies of the world. I realized that I was telling myself an unhelpful, negative, false, story in my head. I realized the power I have to choose what I think, and what I believe, and the story I tell myself.

I realized that love is a choice! A choice to receive. A choice to give. And that the love I experience starts and ends with my thinking.

I realized that loving myself does not mean I become prideful or arrogant. No, loving myself means agreeing with God about what He says about me. Loving myself is choosing to receive God’s unconditional love for me. Loving myself is accepting myself as I am, all of me. Loving myself means I want to be the best version of myself, using my strengths and giftedness to glorify God, and showing up well for others.

Loving myself means choosing the think and believe loving thoughts about myself. Loving myself means having my own back. Loving myself means being kind and compassionate to myself. Loving myself means taking care of me, all of me. Loving myself means meeting my needs, not expecting someone else to.

Loving myself means I stop comparing myself to others. Loving myself means I stop using the world’s standard of measurement. Loving myself means remembering that I am human, and I will make mistakes, but those mistakes do not define me.

The Passion Translation of Proverbs 24:16 says, “For the lovers of God may suffer adversity and stumble seven times, but they will continue to rise over and over again.” Loving myself means I love God, and I will fall, but I will also continue to keep getting up.

Loving myself means I choose to accept all my life. I choose to tell myself and practice believing that nothing has gone wrong. I choose to tell myself and practice believing that God is working all things together for me good. I choose to tell myself and practice believing that God is for me. I choose to tell myself and practice believing that all the people, circumstance, and situations in my life are the curriculum He is using to make me into the person He has created me to be. I choose to tell myself and practice believing that all shall be well. I choose to tell myself and believe God loves me. As I am. Even if I never do another thing or improve in any area.

Loving myself means I choose to accept my life, my choices, have made me who I am. I accept that I cannot change the past or control the future, but I can choose how I show up and live in the now.

I recognized my power to choose my thoughts.

I invested in reading, studying, and discovering how to live a better Way.

I strengthened my resolve to root, ground, center myself in God’s Truth.

I embraced all of life.

“Life is amazing. And then it’s awful. And then it’s amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it’s ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That’s just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it’s breathtakingly beautiful.”
― L.R. Knost

“Life doesn’t always get better.
But you do. You get stronger.
You get wiser. You get softer.
With tattered wings you rise.
And the world watches in wonder
at the breathless beauty of
a human who survived life.”
― L.R. Knost

“And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!” John 16:33 TPT

“For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you’re my true followers.” John 13:35 TPT

You are loved! You are loved! You are loved!

Choose to receive God’s love! Choose to believe you are loved by God! Choose to keep practicing believing until you believe! Know His love for you and then share His love with others! When we rest in God’s love for us, we no longer seek validation or approval from others, we drop our clinginess, and our expectations. When we rest in God’s love for us, we lose our need to judge or compare. When we walk in God’s Truth about ourselves, we respect ourselves and others. When we walk in God’s Truth we grow our capacity to love and serve others well.

“Delightfully loved ones, if he loved us with such tremendous love, then “loving one another” should be our way of life! No one has ever gazed upon the fullness of God’s splendor.  But if we love one another, God makes his permanent home in us, and we make our permanent home in him, and his love is brought to its full expression in us. And he has given us his Spirit within us so that we can have the assurance that he lives in us and that we live in him.

Moreover, we have seen with our own eyes and can testify to the truth that Father God has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Those who give thanks that Jesus is the Son of God live in God, and God lives in them. We have come into an intimate experience with God’s love, and we trust in the love he has for us. God is love! Those who are living in love are living in God, and God lives through them.”          1 John 4: 11-16 TPT