Jesus said, “love your neighbour as you love yourself.” The world tells you to love your self but does loving yourself mean prioritizing your self?
We are living in difficult times.
Besides having to deal with our own personal struggles, we are combating with unheard diseases, climate change, basic safety, social media nuisances and inequality, on a daily basis.
As though these were not enough to make anyone lose their sense of security and feel discouraged, we also live around people who lack empathy and proclaim self-righteousness.
Influenced by this and what seems to be the trend, we are slowly growing cold to our neighbour’s plight and are turning our love inwards.
Why is this happening?
This is happening because the world is teaching us to love ourselves first, be selfish and ignore those around us.
It is telling us to envy our neighbour, to pursue our desires while ignoring our loved ones, to be okay with taking advantage of others and their circumstances, as long as our needs are fulfilled and our personal ambitions are protected.
Indeed, pride has taken over our inner being.
We take pride in the things we selfishly make for ourselves often by putting down others, mocking their weaknesses, and deceiving them to fulfill our needs.
However, when we don’t experience the fulfilment that we thought we would get, we feel angry and frustrated. Anger fills our soul with negativity and overrides all those virtues that we may have built within ourselves, over the years.
Unresolved anger may even compel us to lose control over our thoughts, words and actions. It questions our self-worth, leading us into a state of hopelessness.
But doesn’t the world say that it is important to love your self?
Yes, but we often mistake the meaning of loving ourselves.
Jesus said “love your neighbor as you love your self”.
Note that he doesn’t say- love your neighbor after you love your self or love your neighbour before you love your self.
You see that’s where the problem lies. By our own selves we either start focusing too much on our needs (and ignoring the neighbour) or don’t give ourselves much worth at all (and give great importance to the neighbour)!
The former is usually the result of the latter. We fear that our worth will fall if we are honest towards our feelings and that’s why we create a farce personality, that is far from who we actually are.
Self love, however, should not be something that is derived from our fears or that is centered round our own needs, rather it should be something that brings meaning to our existence.
Let me explain.
We know that the deep cause of every sin is fear.
We lie to our friends in the fear of getting outcasted. We bribe someone in the fear of getting rejected by the system. We cheat in examinations in the fear of failure. We put up a charm in the fear of being rejected by the one we love. We dominate at work in the fear of being dominated over.
All these fears point out to one single fact- that we don’t believe in ourselves.
We don’t believe that we will get through in life without the need to lie, or bribe or cheat or pretend or dominate.
We fear that our true selves (with all its flaws), wouldn’t matter to others, would not match with our friends, and would cause great pain in return.
We fear of being left out or being marked as “weird” or “simple” or “weak”.
These are the very fears that lead us to make desperate attempts, sometimes with the wrong means, to put up a false pretense, and forcefully make something of ourselves, that in our hearts we know we are not.
In our fight to remain relevant or not get rejected, we try to over power others, sometimes by our behaviour, sometimes by our possessions.
Or we find comfort in diverting ourselves into various other distractions, simply to forget the emptiness of our souls.
All this only because we don’t believe in ourselves.
We don’t believe that we matter “because” we are our own selves!
So then what is self love?
Self love is loving ourselves, knowing that we are absolutely and unconditionally loved by God.
It is believing that our existence is a gift from God and accepting it with gratitude and joy. A child loves his mother because she loved him first!
So how can we not thank God for what we are, the person we are from within, the wonderful (but flawed) soul that our close ones talk about!!
Remember, as long as we are driven by our fears of worthlessness, we are incapable of acknowledging the intrinsic values and dignity of anyone. We will always be tempted to exploit others for our own selfish reasons.
But as we become secure in God’s love, we release our selves from our pride, and from the fear of being rejected, unloved and discriminated.
We don’t find it necessary to hide our flaws any more or suppress our pain too because we open our selves to His grace and acknowledge His abundant love and forgiveness.
We begin to accept ourselves as unique creations of God, without having to find meaning for everything we do or be anxious for the way we are.
We trust His purpose for our existence and believe that His plans for us are not to harm us but give us hope and future (Jeremiah 29:11), giving thanks in all circumstances (1 Thessalonians 5:18), and knowing that His grace will accompany His will for us (Billy Graham).
When you truly love your self you change the way you love your neighbour too
When we understand what it is to love ourselves, we start accepting ourselves as we are. We become more authentic in the way we think and act. Naturally, we then start seeing other people as they are.
We believe that like us, their existence is a gift from God as well. We value them and we are grateful for them even if they don’t seem to understand us, because we know that their place in the world, is designed by the same good God that we believe in.
There is a story of a monk who lived alone in a cave deep in an Egyptian desert. Inside these caves there were other people too; lepers who were abandoned by their families.
One day a young British officer who had been wandering in the desert for days together came by the cave and on finding the monk, fell down unconscious. He seemed half dead.
The monk had mercy upon this soldier and decided to nurse him back to health. The old monk never said a word. He only gave him food and water and left for the desert every single day.
When the soldier had regained his energy, he once asked the monk if he could accompany him into the dessert. The monk gave his assent and upon following him, the soldier was aghast to see the large cave filled with lepers.
What was more shocking was that this monk greeted everyone cheerfully, changed their bandages and helped them with their wounds.
Immediately the soldier blurted out “I would not do that for a million dollars! ” In the same breath and much to his surprise, the monk replied “Neither would I”
The monk would not have done this for a million dollars but he did this because he saw these lepers as God’s creations. He believed that Christ dwelt in their souls and therefore he devoted his life to caring for them.
Are you prepared to love your neighbour?
Opportunities to love our neighbours come every day in disguise.
They are present in how we act with our brothers or sisters, husband or wife, our children, our parents, our colleagues, our neighbours, our friends, our enemies, and yes with the most disadvantaged sections of our society- the poor, the abused, the sick, the old.
Real and true love is love for all fellow beings. Through love we must help in the spiritual growth of one another.
When we love our neighbour, we serve our neighbour and ourselves. In our victories and disappointments, we help bring about mutual growth and progress. Most importantly we maintain the faith that love works.
When we envy our neighbour and go about our selfish ways, we do a disservice to our society. We become catalysts to a very dangerous sickness called hatred. A hatred that only goes on to show how for-granted we have taken our lives and our beautiful world!
Choose to love your neighbour the way you would love your true self!
Found this post helpful? You might like reading these as well:
How is Christian love different?
Is it possible to love your enemies?
The surprising truth about pursuing self-worth
How to pursue a fulfilling life on a day-to-day basis
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Hi! My name is Rubitah. I’m a Content Writer certified Life Coach, Counselor, Social Work professional and the Founder of Being Rubitah. Over the years through my professional and personal life, I have realized that prayers and love can do wonders to family life once you come to terms with yourself and surrender to God. Do you relate to me? Then you may like what I post here! Read more about me
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