Love Yourself As Your Enemy
I've realised that up until a little while ago, I've had a very warped view of love.
Somehow, without realising it, I have learned to love my enemies more than my friends. What I mean by this, is that the more I am mistreated, the more kindness I'll show in return, and if I am shown kindness I shy away, and if I am treated too kindly, I'll even bite back as if to say, "How dare you! I'll teach you!" and sometimes I've been really nasty. I don't think that's love at all.
The whole time I didn't really have a chance to analyse this. I would just stay away from people who loved me, and hang out with my enemies 24/7, so the whole time I thought I was full of love. I thought this was the way to go, because:
"Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." - Luke 5:31 (Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17)
But do I really love?
"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."" - Galatians 5:14 (Leviticus 19:18, Leviticus 19:34, Matthew 19:19, Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9, James 2:8)
If I were to love my neighbour the way I love myself, he would be starving and I wouldn't feed him. Instead, I would accuse him of being indulgent. He would be tired and I wouldn't let him sleep. Instead, I would accuse him of being lazy. Everytime he made a mistake I would tell him he was an idiot and curse and swear at him. I would constantly bring up everything he ever did wrong and never forgive him for it. Everytime he did a good job, I would accuse him of having a big head about it. Every basic need he had I would ignore and give something else higher priority.
No wonder I seemed to love my enemies more than I loved my friends! No such limit as love for self was was put on love for my enemies. Jesus said,
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
"But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you," Matthew 5:43-48 (Luke 6:27,35)
But is my behaviour what Jesus wants?
41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
42 'for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink;
43 'I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.'
44 "Then they also will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?'
45 "Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'
46 "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." - Matthew 25:41-46
So obviously, I have to learn to love myself. I was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), and to mistreat myself the way I used to do is an abomination.
How can I claim to love anyone if don't love myself? How can I do to others as I would have them do to me (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31) if I don't know how to treat myself?
I suppose it's sort of the same principle as:
If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? - 1 John 4:20
Or, this is a stretch, I know, but you could also apply the next two principles to this wild idea of loving yourself to understand how to love others.
"Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also." - Matthew 23:26
"Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Matthew 7:5
I know that's not really what those last two verses are about.
What if you wanted to get married? How hypocritical to ask someone to love you if you don't do so yourself! How could you claim to love them?
"So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself." - Ephesians 5:28
Well, I hope this is not missunderstood and I have not caused someone who has no trouble looking out for number one to justify finding himself listed in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
"For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy," - 2 Timothy 3:2
Somehow, without realising it, I have learned to love my enemies more than my friends. What I mean by this, is that the more I am mistreated, the more kindness I'll show in return, and if I am shown kindness I shy away, and if I am treated too kindly, I'll even bite back as if to say, "How dare you! I'll teach you!" and sometimes I've been really nasty. I don't think that's love at all.
The whole time I didn't really have a chance to analyse this. I would just stay away from people who loved me, and hang out with my enemies 24/7, so the whole time I thought I was full of love. I thought this was the way to go, because:
"Jesus answered and said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." - Luke 5:31 (Matthew 9:12, Mark 2:17)
But do I really love?
"For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."" - Galatians 5:14 (Leviticus 19:18, Leviticus 19:34, Matthew 19:19, Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27, Romans 13:9, James 2:8)
If I were to love my neighbour the way I love myself, he would be starving and I wouldn't feed him. Instead, I would accuse him of being indulgent. He would be tired and I wouldn't let him sleep. Instead, I would accuse him of being lazy. Everytime he made a mistake I would tell him he was an idiot and curse and swear at him. I would constantly bring up everything he ever did wrong and never forgive him for it. Everytime he did a good job, I would accuse him of having a big head about it. Every basic need he had I would ignore and give something else higher priority.
No wonder I seemed to love my enemies more than I loved my friends! No such limit as love for self was was put on love for my enemies. Jesus said,
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
"But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you," Matthew 5:43-48 (Luke 6:27,35)
But is my behaviour what Jesus wants?
41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
42 'for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink;
43 'I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.'
44 "Then they also will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?'
45 "Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.'
46 "And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." - Matthew 25:41-46
So obviously, I have to learn to love myself. I was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-27), and to mistreat myself the way I used to do is an abomination.
How can I claim to love anyone if don't love myself? How can I do to others as I would have them do to me (Matthew 7:12, Luke 6:31) if I don't know how to treat myself?
I suppose it's sort of the same principle as:
If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? - 1 John 4:20
Or, this is a stretch, I know, but you could also apply the next two principles to this wild idea of loving yourself to understand how to love others.
"Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also." - Matthew 23:26
"Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." - Matthew 7:5
I know that's not really what those last two verses are about.
What if you wanted to get married? How hypocritical to ask someone to love you if you don't do so yourself! How could you claim to love them?
"So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself." - Ephesians 5:28
Well, I hope this is not missunderstood and I have not caused someone who has no trouble looking out for number one to justify finding himself listed in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
"For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy," - 2 Timothy 3:2
posted by Mathieu | 2:54 am
9 Comments:
a very interesting post, i'll definitely go thru the whole post when i have time, sorry mat!
OK, I've reconsidered everything I said on this post.
First of all, let me say that I don't actually love my enemies more than my friends, I just mean that I treat them that way, and this was me trying to work out why.
Secondly, I don't think I found any contradictory verses at all. I never even found one that says to love yourself.
What I've reconsidered, is how to deal with the reason behind my behaviour. I don't think giving myself loving attention is the answer anymore, but to simply stop giving myself negative attention. The only way to do this, is to focus on love for Jesus and others. It's probably unhealthy to focus on myself at any time. Negatively or positively.
Oh, and by focusing on myself, I don't mean analysing/reassessing myself as I'm doing here, I mean treating myself.
I mean, there's no reason to punish yourself, indulge yourself, or feel sorry for yourself. There's no reason to take pity on yourself and set out to try to ensure your own comfort or anything. There's no reason to call yourself an idiot or give yourself affirmations, you can ponder who you are and where you fit, but as soon as you start talking to yourself, it's not the first sign of madness, but the first step.
It's probably not a good idea for me to verbally abuse my computer either.
Sorry Dillan.
Brief thoughts:
What aspect of yourself are you talking about loving or not loving? (as in your body, or your mind, or your actions, etc.?)
How do you define love as you are using it for yourself?
The reason I ask is that the first thing that came to mind was that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit (there's a donut man song about it...), and we then have a responsibility to look after it, which is an action, and actions are usually expressions of love. So there we are told indirectly to love our bodies through actions which take care of them.
But if you're talking about loving your subconscious self, your mind or your ego, that's different. Because we are told that we need our minds refreshed daily (Romans 12), and this indicates that we don't need to love our thoughts, but submit out thoughts to Christ (weird concept, sounds funny).
If you are talking about not loving the sinful nature which prevents you from doing either of the above, then you might need to do a course on grace and accepting God's grace into your life, because otherwise you'll live a life of self-hatred and depression associated with never reaching the benchmark which Christ set for our lives.
That's about it for me Matt
Aren't you glad I'm not good at studying and keep falling back into procrastination? Otherwise I'd only comment half as often.
I'm not saying I shouldn't love myself, but that I shouldn't focus my love on myself.
I'm not saying I shouldn't look after myself, but that I should leave myself alone and stop fussing.
I should stop tearing myself down and punishing myself, but that doesn't mean I should go the other way and start giving myself verbal affirmations as though I'm a different person trying to convince the other myself that I don't have my own selfish motives for encouraging him when he knows what they are for obvious reasons - because he has direct access to my thoguhts. I'm imposing my insanity on him and driving myself insane.
And I should stop saying, "Hey Mathieu! Don't forget about Mathieu. I think Mathieu's hungry. How hungry do you think he is? Do you think you'll kill him if you don't feed him? Why does Mathieu have to be such a burdan on us? I'm so worried about him right now."
I don't have to be a burdan on myself, because God designed us to be able to look after ourselves without worrying about ourselves, leaving us room to care about others.
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?" Matthew 6:25
Basically, what I've changed my mind about, is that in my post I implied that if you love yourself, love for others will follow.
But I think it goes the other way, that if I love others, then loving myself will follow.
And that if I treat my friends worse than my enemies, then it's not because I don't love myself, but because I'm too proud, and on the contrary, I should get over myself and love others first.
In fact, my whole original post was selfish and stupid.
Whether or not I love myself is not something to worry about, but whether or not I love others. Loving myself will follow, as long as I don't hate myself.
Ok, so now I'm going to be a pain and disagree with something and say that I think (and this is just my opinion, not Biblical truth) that it's ok to encourage yourself to do good things. It's ok to talk yourself through difficult situations. and yeah, that's it from me.
Word verification knows I'm dead tired - wclgkzfd
Cat's random thoughts on how to be a better lover
Ok, I'm going to express this less than perfectly, but here goes...
I don't think it's possible to love others to one's fully capacity, without loving oneself.
By loving oneself, I don't mean an idolatrous, narcissistic type love. I mean a deep-seated awareness that we are made in God's image, and that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139) and that "His works are wonderful". The more we recognise this, the more we are able to see it in others.
I believe that the more we receive God's love, the more we are able to love others in an agape way. Because God is Life. God is Truth. And God is LOVE. And when we allow God to love us, really love us, we subsequently empower (for want of a better word) ourselves to love others sacrificially.
There exists "love" that resembles agape love, but in reality is not. For example, some people think they love sacrificially, when in reality they are just emotional martyrs. Their love is selfish, manipulative. They give to get. Their sub-text is, "I've sacrificed an arm and a leg for you, and now you owe me," although they don't necessarily say that. They just make you feel guilty!
Other people try to love in a sincere, genuine way, but don't allow themselves to receive love. Their view of themselves is so distorted, they subconsciously look for, or attract, people who will treat them in the way they believe they deserve to be treated. But that's not always the case. Sometimes these sorts of people do find themselves surrounded by friends who do love them. The problem is, while they love and care for their friends, they wall themselves off from allowing friends to fully reciprocate their phileo love back.
One of my favourite parts of the Bible is Ephesians 3:17b-19 (NIV):
"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know that this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fulness of God."
How can we get rooted and established in God's love? I believe one way of doing this learning what God says about us, how He sees us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. We are the apple of His eye. We are the head and not the tail. We are built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. If we don't accept this, we're not accepting God's truth. How do we accept it? By mediating on it.
But it's one thing to intellectually grasp something, and it's another thing to receive it into one's heart, one's spirit. God's love "surpasses all knowledge"; so after mediating on God's Word, it might be a good idea to pray, "Lord, I receive Your love and Your truth".
I have so much more to say but I have to go to bed soon.
Before I go, I want to leave a quote from a Max Luccardo book, Come Thirsty.
"Some people love you because of you. Not God. He loves you because He is He. He loves you because He decides to. Self-generated, uncaused and spontaneous, His constant-level love depends on His choice to give it... You don't influence God's love. You can't impact the treeness of a tree, the skyness of the sky, or the rockness of a rock. Nor can you affect the love of God..."
When a believer receives a personal revelation of God's love, it overwhelms them, humbles them, transforms them, makes them so grateful, so floored, they just have to give it away. This doesn't necessarily happen once; it can be a process, and it usually is.
We receive God's endless supply of love vertically, so we can give it horizontally, to others. But if we try to love others in our own strength, we're doomed for failure.
I know that I've gone off on some tangents, but it's just that I think that loving oneself, and loving God and loving others, is so intertwined, it's hard to talk about one without talking about the other. Jesus told us to (1) love God with all your strength and all your heart, and all your mind (2) love your neighbour as you love yourself.
So, after all of that, in answer to your question, yes, I do think we have to love ourselves. But as I wrote at the start, not in the narcissistic way that the world recognises as love. We are given the option to receive God's abundant love and accept His truth about who He says we are, so that it may transform us from inside-out, and we in turn can love others as Christ loved us.
PS. Mathieu, I've had warped views of love too. I've always found it difficult to receive love, even from God, and especially from others. Know how you feel!!!
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