"The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other greater commandment than these." Mark 12:31 ESV
Learning to love ourselves appropriately is vital to winning the fight against insecurity. It isn't the kind of self love that keeps our focus on ourselves, it is a love that frees us to live in the light. It is the freedom that can only be gained through the light of Christ.
During this journey that I find myself on I have had to face the fact that one of my greatest obstacles is that there are times that I simply don't love myself. Frankly, there are days that I hate me. I have found that given the opportunity that I am the first person that will put me down. I also learned that all these negative thoughts that swirl around in my brain only drag me deeper into the prison that I built myself. It is only when I remember that I have to love who I am that I see any light in the darkness that I have custom built myself.
I continue to exempt myself from the promises that God gives me until I learn how to receive God's unconditional love for me. I don't love myself because I am a good person. When I learn to receive God's love I learn that I can love and accept myself because God is good and I am His creation. God don't make no junk (learned that one in Sunday school!)
Isn't it cool to know that God has always loved us and that even though we are utter failures He still does? He accepts me under the grace of Jesus Christ. If God loves me then I am worth loving. What other confirmation do you or I need? God tells us to love our neighbor as yourself but how do we expect to obey this command if we can't find a love for who we are? It didn't start with finding out how to love myself from some seminar or some self help book. It took starting to look in the presence of love, God, to find out how to love.
Trust and love work together in my journey to overcome my insecurity. The same goes for you as well. You can trust God's Word as truth because you have spent enough quality time with Him to realize that He can be trusted. And in this time spent with God you will find the love that is missing from your life. God and His everlasting love for us will lead us to the freedom that we never thought was possible. But it has to start with an active choice to trust what God's Word says about who you are and it is an active choice to love who we are despite how you might feel about yourself.
I once heard it said that the battle for freedom is fought in the head but it is ultimately won in the heart. If you are like me you have already asked yourself the same question I ask: How do I win that battle? I can tell you that it takes more than reading a plan in your Bible, it takes more than regular church attendance, it takes more than serving others, and it surely takes more than being a good person. I can tell you it takes time spent in the presence of Jesus Christ. It takes stopping the busyness of your day, closing your door, and intentionally seeking God's heart to find out who you really are and soaking in His presence until you are changed at your core. Seeking God's heart is sadly a dying practice but if you want to win the battle you are waging for the person you are you can not let this die with you. You have to stand your ground and seek out God's heart and the heart of who you are.
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13 ESV
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” 1st John 4:7-19 ESV
Learning to love ourselves appropriately is vital to winning the fight against insecurity. It isn't the kind of self love that keeps our focus on ourselves, it is a love that frees us to live in the light. It is the freedom that can only be gained through the light of Christ.
During this journey that I find myself on I have had to face the fact that one of my greatest obstacles is that there are times that I simply don't love myself. Frankly, there are days that I hate me. I have found that given the opportunity that I am the first person that will put me down. I also learned that all these negative thoughts that swirl around in my brain only drag me deeper into the prison that I built myself. It is only when I remember that I have to love who I am that I see any light in the darkness that I have custom built myself.
I continue to exempt myself from the promises that God gives me until I learn how to receive God's unconditional love for me. I don't love myself because I am a good person. When I learn to receive God's love I learn that I can love and accept myself because God is good and I am His creation. God don't make no junk (learned that one in Sunday school!)
Isn't it cool to know that God has always loved us and that even though we are utter failures He still does? He accepts me under the grace of Jesus Christ. If God loves me then I am worth loving. What other confirmation do you or I need? God tells us to love our neighbor as yourself but how do we expect to obey this command if we can't find a love for who we are? It didn't start with finding out how to love myself from some seminar or some self help book. It took starting to look in the presence of love, God, to find out how to love.
Trust and love work together in my journey to overcome my insecurity. The same goes for you as well. You can trust God's Word as truth because you have spent enough quality time with Him to realize that He can be trusted. And in this time spent with God you will find the love that is missing from your life. God and His everlasting love for us will lead us to the freedom that we never thought was possible. But it has to start with an active choice to trust what God's Word says about who you are and it is an active choice to love who we are despite how you might feel about yourself.
I once heard it said that the battle for freedom is fought in the head but it is ultimately won in the heart. If you are like me you have already asked yourself the same question I ask: How do I win that battle? I can tell you that it takes more than reading a plan in your Bible, it takes more than regular church attendance, it takes more than serving others, and it surely takes more than being a good person. I can tell you it takes time spent in the presence of Jesus Christ. It takes stopping the busyness of your day, closing your door, and intentionally seeking God's heart to find out who you really are and soaking in His presence until you are changed at your core. Seeking God's heart is sadly a dying practice but if you want to win the battle you are waging for the person you are you can not let this die with you. You have to stand your ground and seek out God's heart and the heart of who you are.
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart." Jeremiah 29:13 ESV
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.” 1st John 4:7-19 ESV
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