We won’t be able to love our neighbor properly without first of all loving ourselves with the same love that God loved us with.

Romans 5:5… the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

The Love that has been poured out in your heart came from God. He poured it into you. We can safely say that He poured out the fundamental Nature of Himself into us (2 Peter 1:4). You and I are to take that same fundamental Nature which is His Love and use it on ourselves. You are to be the first recipient of the Love of God that is in you. Take His Love that has been poured into you and use His Love on yourself. This will giveyou the platform to love your neighbor as well as your enemies. Without first of all loving yourself, you have nothing to give to anyone else.

Make sure you are in love with you, and you will always be in love with everyone else. Remember, I am talking about the God quality of Love, not something that is selfish and or self- centered. The best way to take inventory of how much you really love yourself is found in your expression, manner of speech, attitudes and actions toward others. Having the God quality of love for yourself will guarantee that you have the right love for your neighbor. People who hurt others often do so out of their own frustrations, not out of the perception of the person that they hurt.

John C. Maxwell once said that, “hurting people hurt people.” The Holy Spirit gave me another quote that will bring a slightly different angle to the Maxwell quote.

“Loving people…, love people; especially themselves.” — Anthony N. Wade

Jesus clearly communicated that the arena of love for our neighbor is found in our love for ourselves. The first commandment is to love the Lord your God, heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30). The second is just as powerful and as important as the first.

Mark 12:31

{31} “and the second, like it, is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

Love for you will consist of forgiving yourself. Until a person is truly walking in forgiveness towards himself it will be impossible for him to really forgive others. It will also be increasingly impossible for him to get his prayers answered (Mark 11:23 -26).

Every one of us has done things that we were not pleased with. The key to overcoming blunders is to be as generous and loving to yourself as God would be to you. If God is generous enough to forgive you, it is necessary for you, to forgive yourself. When God forgives, He also forgets.

“God Never Consults Your Past To Determine Your Future.” — Dr. Mike Murdock

If you will plant the seeds of forgiving as God does, you will reap the harvest of forgetting as He does. If God chose to forgive and forget any and everything you used to be; then you must in turn have the same point of view, about you. It is vital for you to be at peace with you, especially if God is at peace with you. He has a favorable disposition towards you. Do you have a favorable regard for you? (Isaiah 43:25, Hebrews 8:12, 10:17).

Psalm 103:12

{12} As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Micah 7:18 -19

{18} Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy.

{19} He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue (conquer) our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.

If all of our sins are in the depths of the sea, they are forgiven and forgotten. They are not remembered (Hebrews 8:12; Hebrews 10:17). Don’t go fishing for them, they are not there. They are forgiven and forgotten. If God has forgotten, and forgiven them—when are you? Don’t waste your time on something that no longer exists.

There is something about you that no one else has. It could be the color of your eyes, or the complexion of your skin. It could be the melanin in your skin, or the lack thereof. It could be the shape of your nose, or the size of your feet. Perhaps you view things a smidgen different that your peers. You are unique.

“The most damaging thing that you can do to yourself, is to live your life according to someone else's view of you.” –Anthony N. Wade

Dr. Ed Cole said, “Many of men fail because they wear the pattern of life someone else has for them.”

“Wearing someone else’s view of you is a weak analysis of how God made you.”
–Anthony N. Wade

Psalm 139: 13 -18

{13} For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.

{14} I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.

{15} My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

{16} Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.

{17} How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

{18} If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You.

There is a balance when it comes to these truths. There are men and women in the Body of Christ that are God’s delegated authority. His appointed authority in our lives we are to respect, and hold them in high esteem. Anything less than that is mutiny.

Doing your own thing, having your own agenda, without any regard to God’s delegated authority, is rebellion. The man or women that say’s I am free and I answer to no man is ignorant of God’s “Divine Arrangement.” This kind of person is in a very dangerous position and is wide open to the devil and his diabolical deeds.

David understood God’s delegated authority in Saul. It was because he recognized Saul as a representative of God, that the Lord God acknowledged him as a man after His own heart. David knew the danger in laying a hand on, let alone speaking against God’s authority (I Samuel 26:9-12, 2 Samuel 1). -AWM

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