Mark 12:30-31 New International Version (NIV)
30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your mind and with all your strength.’ [a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love
your neighbor as yourself.’ [b] There is no commandment greater than
these.”
Negative Result of Not Loving/believing on Oneself
1. Dependence in stead of self reliance
2. Mediocrity in stead of excellence
3. Inferiority complex in stead of self esteem/confidence.
What Loving oneself will bring to us.
1. Self Searching and awareness. You realize that you don’t have to pretend but you can be
yourself and be proud of yourself.
2. Self Value. You realize that your value does not depend on the opinion of others but on the
One who created you.
3. Self Reliance. You realize that you don’t need the approval of others to bloom and be
yourself. You can be like a tree standing by yourself, then others will come because of your
fruit.
Loving oneself is not an end to itself but a means to an end.
1. We are meant to love ourselves for us to take care of ourselves. Ephesians 5:29
2. We are meant to love ourselves for us to contain and appreciate God’s love. 2 Corinthians
8:9
3. We are meant to love ourselves for us to channel God’s love to others. “others, as you love
yourself.” Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sins against us. This means that the
vertical love, the Agape is centered on oneself for you to love the rest of the world. In what
basis, as Christ has loved you; as God has forgiven you; as God has blessed you.
We should know that even if God’s love covers the whole world it is directed to you as individual. It is another way of saying that for God so love the world… you can actually put your name in the world. He loved you so much that he saved you. But you cannot appreciate that love and can’t contain it until you start loving yourself. People who don’t love themselves are with low self esteem and low tolerance to hardship. They are quick to think of suicide. No matter how much you tell them that God loves them, they have no way to appreciate it and contain it. But when we activate the love to ourselves we start seeing ourselves in the light of our Creator: how genius He is to create you in every part of you. See Psalms 139, of a man who starts looking to his inner being and begin to be amazed on how great is the God who designed and purposely created him. The Psalmist ended up with a prayer that God will search him and teach him more, because the more he looks at himself the more he sees the great God. The more we see the greatness of His love within us, the more we become capable of loving our neighbours as ourselves.