Christian Living
LOVING GOD, LOVING SELF
Today I heard a new song from a musician who has been around for quite a while. Her stellar musical career and private life have been colorful in equal measure. Now, this is one lady whose music I really liked when growing up and thought she was the epitome of all that music composition should be. She is black, strong and with an equally powerful voice to match. Back then when I did not know the implications of words, I liked one particular song she sung. Some of the words in that song went something like this, ‘…..I have found the greatest love of all/ its easy to achieve/ learning to love the self/ it is the greatest love of all…..’ I repeated those lyrics over and over and thought to myself that one day I would be just like her- a strong, confident, proud black woman!
It’s been years since and a lot has happened in her life; and in mine too. In the midst of all these happenings, Jesus found me and made me His. And still in Jesus, a lot has still gone by but He has remained my rock and my salvation. This lady has experienced a traumatic marriage, problems with drugs and a waning career. She still sings, but a pale shadow of her former self. And today some of the words in her new song go something like this, ‘………I have crushed and tumbled/ but I have not crumbled/…..I have found a light inside my heart…….’ As I heard those words, I was awash with sadness; a sadness that came from the fact that I know without a doubt that if she does not meet with Jesus then things will definitely come a crumbling! I believe that she genuinely thinks that some positive talk and a little tender loving care to her being will do the trick. It might, for some time, for a moment but not the everlasting kind that every soul yearns for.
I am convinced that loving self is important, else we would not have any measure by which to love our neighbors as ourselves. However it has to be in the proper perspective. Jesus gave the order by which this loving must be realized. It has first to go to the Lord God, with all our heart, soul and strength. For you see our creator has the blueprint on how we should love, He made us and therefore He should know! He knows that when we first love Him then we discover that in loving ourselves we should remember that we are created in no less an image and likeness than His. Awesome! He knows that in loving Him we discover that, He who is in us is greater than He who is in the world- and we marvel at what the Lord could have seen in such a frail vessel that He would choose us as His abode. He also knows that when we love Him first then His joy becomes our strength, He gives us beauty for ashes, dancing for mourning and we soar like eagles-and we wonder why when we look in the mirror we have a beauty that belies all that we are going through! Then when we look at the cross of Calvary and how God would choose to become man just for me; and for you- and we now get the exact picture of how we should love ourselves.
Loving self without loving God first is a road that is fraught with disappointment and frustration, because the self without God is desperately wicked and unruly. Loving God ensures that we get just the right amount of loving of ourselves; not overmuch so that we forget God and not too little that we despise him by despising and harming ourselves. It does not come from an ‘inner light’; it comes from the light of the Son.
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